GENERALS IN THE WAR

Waipa Post, Volume 49, Issue 3555, 8 December 1934, Page 3

GENERALS IN THE WAR

REPLIES TO MAJOR-GENERAL ALEXANDER. TOO LATE ON GALLIPOLI. In last Saturday's issue MajorGeneral Lethbridge Alexander put the Case for the generals in the Great War, and replied to criticisms by Mr Lloyd George and others. Below we give a selection of letters on the major-general's article, published in the Sunday Times, London. LOIST OPPORTUNITY. » WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ON GALLIPOLL (From Sir Arthur Crosfield.) Sir, —Major-General H. Lethbridge Alexander points out the formidable obstacles that would have been encountered had " the bulk of our forces been committed to an oifensive on a large scale in either Italy or the Balkans, at any period of the war." The period with which I am concerned in this letter is the early part of 1915, when it was proposed that troops should be landed on the eastern shores of Gallipoli, in order that the Allied attack upon that peninsVila and the Straits should be made both by land and water. There was no question of " the bulk of our forces " being needed for the purpose. Only 6000 Turks were on Gallipoli at the time the ports were being bombarded by Allied warships —. with another 1000 Turks en the Asiatic side of the Sti'aits. Small, indeed, would have been the demands upon our resources in men and munitions of war in order to dispose of this Turkish force, even if that force had attempted to offer any opposition. Had the policy of " amphibious" attack been adopted it is highly probable that the Turks would 1 have attempted no resistance at all. Whether they attempted to put up a fight; or not the sending of a small contingent of our troops to Gallipoli at that time, far from being one of the " wild military adventures advocated by Mr Lloyd George," would have speedily placed the Allies in command of both the Peninsula and the Straits. WHAT WAS LOST. In other words, the policy initiated by Mr Churchill and supported by Mr Lloyd George would have been a brilliant .and decisive success. The Turks would have fled to Asia Minor, and, with Turkey out of the war and Bulgaria entering it, —not against, but on the side of the Allies; with rifles and ammunition supplied to Russia, and the Russian debacle and revolution averted; and with wheat from the granaries of Russia at the disposal of the Allies, their position in that deadly European struggle would hbve been strengthened immeasurably. Those Allied forces, alas ! were not sent; but even then that disastrous error might have been repaired', for M. Venizelos at that time proposed that a Greek army corps should be dispatched to Gallipoli. When fictitious objections were urged against that proposal at the second of the two historic Crown Councils, held in Athens on 3rd and. sth March, he recoan'm ended instead that a single division should be sent. Although that proposal had the practically unanimous support of distinguished political opponents of long standing; it was, unhappily, turned down, owing to the fatally misguided influence brought to bear upon King Constantine at that juncture. A TRAGIC ERROR. Had that Greek expeditionary force landed on Gallipoli, M. Venizelos calculated that within three weeks of the date of embarkation the Greek troops would have been in Constantinople. There the Turks were in consternation the moment the rumour of this expeditionary force reached thelm, and immediate preparations were made for flight. As a consequence of this policy, had it been adopted, the position of the Central Powers would have been so weakened that, however desperate the efforts they made, M. Venizelos lias estimated they could not possibly have maintained the struggle beyond the spring of 1910 and that after the failutre of the Verdun offensive, they would have been compelled to sue for peace. If it would be vain to seek in history for any parallel to an error of judgment and policy which has cost the whole world so dearly in disaster and misery, it is very certain that responsibility for that tragic error in those fateful early months of 1915 does not lie at the door of those statesmen who at that time were bent on " finding a way round." in order to attack the enemy, not on his strongest, but on his weakest, front. MARCH, 1918. COMMUNICATIONS WITH ITALY. (From Staff-Captain Arthur Chichester, Cherbourg Base.) •Sir, —I cannot quite understand Major-General Alexander's remarks contained inj paragraph six of bis article. He says that owing to the interrupted railway communications

at Amiens in March, 1918, three divisions in Italy were without supplies of any kind for months. ,If that is so the fault is certainly with our military authorities on the Italian side of the Alps, for on the French side we had a direct line of comfmUnication with Italy and the Mediterranean that never went anywhere near Amiens, and which was never, as far as I can remember, ever affected by the 1918 operations against that town. Our Mediterranean line of communications ran .front Cherbourg direct to Modfane througlh Mezidcn, Chateau de la. Loire, and Tours. The smooth transit of stores from England to Italy right down to Taranto, thence to Salonika and Egypt, was carried on unceasingly from April, 1917, when the line first came into being, up to August, 1919, when the line was closed. During the whole of that period I was serving as staff captain, Cherbourg Base, and, although transport was conducted more or less independently under its own self-contained staff, base headquar-tei-s was fully in touch with the daily movements of troops and stores destined for the south. TRAINS DAY AND NIGHT. I well remember the period referred to by General Alexander. Most of my nights at that time were spent deciphering yards of telegrams, concerning thousands of tons eif stores for the souith. Ships arrived from England every day, and trains departed for Italy every night, or nearly every day and night. What, however, I do not remember now is whether General Alexander's divisions were -at-"this! iperiod' under" War Office for stores or Haig. The line of communications of which I speak was mostly run by the Wiar Office and Sir Eric Geddes direct. If General Alexander's men relied on getting their supplies from the British Expeditionary Force in France, why on earth, when all our shores from Cherbourg were passing through Italy bound for Taranto, did he pot get them' switched to our units. The Cherbougr-Taranto line was sufficiently well organised to feed six divisions in Italy, and, although there may have been a shortage of forage owing to its bulk and a temporary scarcity of railway rollingstock, there never was, carrying my memory back to those days, any serious shortage of wagons for the ti-ans-port of either rations, ammunition, or reinforcements of personnel. Jin March, 1918, Tours was occupied hiy the Americans, but I do not remeimber any hitch on the line on that account. It would, therefore, seem that if General Alexander's troops went hungry, there must have been something radically wrong in his own arrangements, or. possibly, bungling and wrangling between the War Office and the British Expeditionary Force in France. PARIS AND THE PORTS. THE PRIME OBJECT OF STRATEGY. (Colonel C. S. Collison, Salisbury.) Major-General Lethbridge criticises as " dangerous and misleading" one of your reviewer's statements in his review of Mr Lloyd-George's " War Memoirs." But the major-genera] himself is equally misleading the public when he states " in 1914 and again in 1918 large German forces were hurled at our line with, the object of gaining Paris and the- Channel ports, the loss of eithei-, unless some impressive miracle had occurred, would have led to the defeat of the Allies."

The object of the violent German attacks against the British in 1914 was the outflanking and crushing of the Allied left wing, as a prelude to the decisive rolling up of the main French armies from the west. German strategical doctrine was based on the teachings of von Clausewitz, and everyone who has studied that master's works knows that the first and, principal object of every campaign is the destruction of the enemy's main forces in the field, and that to involve your troops in the intricate network of a big city with your opponent's main armies still undefeated outside it is the negation of all sound strategy and tactics. Tine Germans were excellent soldiers, and knew this well. If they wanted Paris they knew that a decisive defeat of the Allies in the field would give it to them (and also the Channel ports!), and they concentrated their energies for such decisive action. It is asking too much of the public to expect them to take the view that the fall of Paris, or even of the Channel ports, would have resulted in the defeat of the French and British armies in the field, and it is particularly "dangerous and misleading" for professional soldiers to entertain such ideas. CAUSE OF TROUBLE. GENERALS NOT "RADICAL" ENOUGH. (Brigadier-General F. P. Crozier, W'alton-on-Thames.) Major-General Alexander, like most soldiers, bases his defence of soldiers on a false thesis which can only be so proved by the method of redlu/ctio ad absurdum which Mr Lloyd George has employed to a successful' end. It is sad but true that generals can never, on the whole, be successful in war because most are conservative

(in the wide sense), and none is radical. A commander-in-chief in war requires to be fari more than a "traditional Regular ": he must be .a radical revolutionary. Given a "radical revolutionary " (in the wide sense) in chief comlmand in France and at tjhe head of the General Staff afcthe War Office, there "would" have'been a " way round " in the east, a strong " defence" in the west; corps, divisions, and brigades, better led and trained; fewer " duds " everywhere; and man-power saved by about 50 per cent, on account of better training and less preventable disease and battle casualties. , As all this was not to be, Sir John French was allowed to sack Sir. Horace Smith-Dorrien because he did not like him; Sir Hubert. Gough .was' sacrificed by Sir Douglas Haig "because he (Haig) was not radical enough, to stand up to and defeat the greatest radical of all (Lloyd George); "and some divisions were doomed to dud command in monotonous procession. ,Major-General Alexander saffs: "When Mr Baldwin states that.the frontier of the British Empire is on the Rhine, every thoughtful sgldier knows, what he means." Most .thoughtful students of progress (like 'Mr Lloyd George, for instance) know that there are now no such things as " frontiers" save in the makeshift and unreal sense. , .... God save England from war, and the generals ! .■< "CRAZY STRATEGY." -^'.l'v THE GENERALS DEFENDER. t (Lieutenant-Colonel A. G. Smith, Kensington.) . | Your reviewer, dealing with Ma' Lloyd George's Memoirs,- spoke of the " crazy strategy which holds that the best way of defeating the enemy is to attack him l where he. is strongest." All professional- 5 strategists, however, are brought up in the doctrine of being themselves " strongest " at the decisive points of attack the whereabouts of those points are not, of course, -easy to determine, or revealed by the enemy. He, in turn, endeavours- to. -he " strongest" to defend such points as are attacked, with the not infrequent result that the severest fighting takes place about them.... ;„..' This may appear to amateur strategists a. deplorable proceeding, tp he easily avoided by seeking ."it .way round," .and by effecting a, surprise entry by the enemy's back door. Unfortunately, an intelligent enemy is always aware of his "back doori" and will usually be ready to defend it as strongly as the front. To rooted the British ExpeditionaryForce, with a large portion "of : the French Army, from the main theatre of war in the West, and to have shipped these troops to the Balkans, would have amounted to leaving' our own "front door" open; and even if the enemy had hot seized the "opportunity to enter by it, he stuThSd ample margin oif time to" concentrate on the Balkan front and on'cV'mOre be " strongest " there. It'mighV'fhen have been "crazy" to' attack him there; and the Allies would' 'have needed another amateur inspiration; Speaking further of the history of war, your reviewer says: "The great things have tended to' be done". by amateurs Who have been in touch with realities at many points." Hi|>torv, with its long roll of great professional soldiers, hardly warrants such an assertion*. " Realities," Jirideed, are to be found rather in "the field,' in contact with the enemy, than in the Cabinets of statesmen,' however gifted: even Pitt himself was careful to get as much professional advice as he could. It way be, as your reviewer asserts, that soldiers are "the most conservative of mankind," possibly because they are so often called on to experiment, in their own persons, with the notions of amateur strategists: in high places.