TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE MEANING OF UNITY. BEFORE any person begins to consider the momentous debate which took place in the House of Commons on Tuesday about the Versailles Council and the Higher Command he would do well to fix in his mind the words with which the Prime Minister opened his statement. Mr. Lloyd George said : "I hope that whatever is said to-day will be treated as a question of policy and not of personalities." There has indeed been far too free a use of " personalities " at the cost of obscuring the critical, and perhaps decisive, questions of military policy which have just been laid before the country. The Prime Minister has stood for one line of military policy and Sir William Robertson for another. Between these two policies there was no possibility of recon- ciliation. They differed far too widely for that. How strongly Sir William Robertson felt about Mr. Lloyd George's policy is proved by the fact that, though he was offered the highest posts which the War Cabinet have to offer under the new scheme of administration, he felt it his duty finally and without hesitation to decline them both. He did• this because he believed that the new scheme is unworkable— or if that be too strong a word to use, that at all events it is a very. bad substitute for the old one, and introduces all kinds of complications which had not previously existed, thus diminishing the power of the Army to make war with good effect. If the situation could be expressed in a single sentence, it would be fair to say that Sir William• Robertson thinks that the unity of military control at home is being sacrificed to that military unity of the Allies which we all desire.
Every one who appreciates Sir William Robertson's splendid record in an administrative capacity, and .remembers his well- earned reputation for strategical insight, will understand that the fact that Mr. Lloyd George has parted with such an adviser is a very serious matter, especially at this time. Before we go any further, however, let us say that the governing fact of the situation is that the House of Commons decided to _accept the Prime Minister's policy and to reject Sir William Robertson's. It did this with its eyes open and after a plain statement of the case. Whatever may be said in criticism of Mr. Lloyd George's ambiguity and reticence in the previous week, it cannot be complained that on Tuesday he withheld any of the material facts necessary for judgment. With those facts in mind, the House of Commons accepted the responsibility of recording its opinion that the Prime Minister's policy must be adopted in place of Sir William Robertson's. This being so, any man would be wantonly taking on his shoulders an equally grave responsibility if he tried to interpose difficulties in the way of the Government. The only thing to be done now is to try to extract from the new scheme of joint internal military control—for we cannot help regarding it as such—the best possible results in the fighting which the Army will undertake in a daily increasing degree as the spring advances.
In speculating whether the Prime Minister or Sir William Robertson was likely to be the wiser military adviser, one has only the past to go upon. It is impossible to forget the past, and it is very salutary and necessary to bear it in mind, though one may still ardently hope that _Mr. Lloyd George may be handsomely justified of his schemes. The parting of the ways between the Prime Minister and Sir William Robertson, so far as the public knew, was reached when Mr. Lloyd George delivered his memorable Paris speech. He represented the strategy of the West—that is to say, the strategy of Sir William Robertson and Sir Douglas Haig—as that of battering one's head against an impenetrable barrier. He showed that his own mind was captivated by visions of easy conquest in other parts of Europe. He contrasted with the strategy of Westernism, for instance, a glowing picture drawn by some American war correspondent of what might have beenattained by a British advance across the Corso to Trieste, and so into Austria. A great many people—and, we are sure, the majority of soldiers—with all the will in the world to discover better strategical plans than those which we have hitherto adopted, find it difficult to believe that it is possible to run faster round the outside of a circle than round the inside. For it must be remembered that the Germans are always on the inside of the circle. We may move our troops to some new point in the indulgence of the pleasant fancy that, as no enemy to speak of is to be found there at the moment, our men will have an easy and agreeable walk-over. But, after all, it takes Lime to convey our troops to that comparatively empty territory. When we had conveyed them there we should find that the Germans, with the help of a greatly superior network of railways, had been able, to convey more troops thither in the time. Consider the special example given by Mr. Lloyd George —what seemed to him to be an easy opening into Austria. Our armies would have had to be conveyed. partly by the Mont Cenis route and partly by the Riviera route. As against these two -lines, the Germans would have been served by about a dozen main and subsidiary railways. Again, it may be pointed out that we should have had to convey our armies through tunnels, which are extremely difficult things to repair if any accident should happen. A block lasting a few days might have disastrous results. In the abstract it might be argued that a nation which has the command of the sea could convey a large part of its troops and supplies by water. But the answer to that is the obvious objection that we have no ships to spare. Of course Mr. Lloyd George when he described the possibilities of this British-Italian adventure was only speaking in -retrospect of what might have been done earlier in the war if our strategists had had more flexible and imaginative minds. There can be no doubt that he must see now that plans which might have been possible once, however risky, are out of the question to-day.
In comparison with viewy strategy, lvhat Sir William Robertson boa always stood for must necessarily seem plodding and dull. Throughout he has acted wader the conviction that the Germans must be fought and beaten where they can be found in the greatest numbers. If you are going to airihilate your enemy, you cannot do it by going somewhere where he is not. Sooner or later he must be met and over come. Otherwise his armies will remain in existence, and in default of beating them we should only occupy some unessential places and score what Napoleon used to call empty honours. These transparent principles of strategy, which are not set down here with any presumption to pro- fessional military knowledge but merely as being the axioms which nearly all military thinkers accept, are most necessary to bear in mind, for the past dangers may easily be repeated, and the nation be enthralled by some fanciful strategy in future. It may be said that the restraining -power of the Government's military advisers will be quite enough to prevent the adoption of Wild schemes. But can we really be BUM Of this ? Unfortunately the fact seems to be that in these days, when the country is largely being governed by newspapers, public opinion is stampeded, and the opinion of the most accomplished and, we may add, the nnpst honest soldiers is sought only for the purpose of putting into effect some plan which the War Cabinet, following the newspapers, has decided in any case to be unavoidable. The utmost caution and watchfulness will therefore be necessary on the part of all intelligent and patriotic people who intend that, come what may, Germany shall not be allowed to impose her will upon the world. Happily the nation is perfectly sound in its feelings and in its comprehension of the situation. It knows—and this is the reason why it has always trusted Sir William Robertson—that ultimately wars are won by the willingness to endure and by the determination to make whatever sacrifices may be necessary. Looking back on the past year, the vast majority of Englishmen believe that the strategy Of Sir William Robertson and. Sir Douglas Haig, in fighting with the shortest possible means of communication and in tackling the enemy where he was strongest, and in territory, which, on his own, admission, he regarded as of the first importance, has been thoroughly justified. There is, moreover, a belief that if that strategy had been carried out as was originally designed at the Council of the Allies in the winter of 1916, it would have beeu much more successful than it was. The British Government required Sir Douglas Haig to delay his plan of operations in the spring of 1917 in order to lend support to a new idea of General Nivelle's, and when the results were disappointing -we were told in the Paris speech that the explanation of everything was the lack of unity amongst the Allies. Surely a plainer explanation was that, after unity had been reached, second thoughts were allowed to prevail. Further, it 'should be remembered that before that time we had never had enough men to do exactly what we wanted anywhere. The greatest conceivable unity of ideas in 191.5 and 1916 would not have supplied the means of carrying out those ideas. As all the Allies have agreed to the principle of the Versailles Council, there is of course no possibility of going back upon the decision. The Council must be used for its ostensible purpose, and we earnestly hope that it may be suecessfally used. Sir William Robertson's objection to the constitution of the Council related only to one point—the division of control. According to the plan which has been adopted, there will be two independent executive officers in control of the British Army—the Chief of the Staff at home and the military representative at Versailles. This was what Sir William Robertson considered to be an unworkable plan, and for our part we cannot help feeling that there was the utmost force in his objection. So long as the Versailles Council had not executive functions no great principle was at stake, but directly it was invested with executive functions the vital question arose whether there was to be unity or divided control. Sir William Robertson argued that the Chief of Staff, as the principal adviser of the Government, ought to be responsible for all decisions taken in the name of the British Empire at Versailles. In other words, he demanded that he, as Chief of Staff, should be represented there by deputy when he did not himself attend the most important sessions. He perceived that if there were to be two executives, one in London and one at Versailles, their decisions were bound to conflict sooner or later, and that if the conflict came at a critical moment disaster might be the result. Lord Curzon explained in the House of Lords on Tuesday that the members of the Versailles Council "would have at their disposal troops from the Allied forces which in certain contingencies they could either add to the British forces in France or send anywhere that they might be required." This is an exceedingly important statement, and, so far as we have observed, not nearly enough attention has been given to it in the discussions of the Parliamentary debate. For it is obvious that the success of some operation which is being conducted on the authority of the British Chief of Staff may depend entirely upon his having every available man at his disposal ; yet under the present arrangement he cannot know from hour to hour whether the troops considered to be under the control of the authorities in France may not be withheld from him.
Let it be freely acknowledged that the scheme for securing greater unity among the Allies has now been developed so far that it must be accepted and whole-heartedly worked for all it is worth. But this universal agreement does not, and cannot, affect the question how exactly it is wisest for the British Empire to be represented on the Versailles Council. France seems to have chosen an exceedingly good way. The French representative on the Council is also the French Chief of Staff—namely, General Foch. There is no division of control for the French. France is indeed the true home of the unities, and if we shall not seem to be straying into the frivolous by a reference to a famous passage in Dickens, we must say that we are reminded of Mr. Curdle's words about the dramatic unities. "The unities, sir, are a completeness—a kind, of universal dove-taileclness with regard to time and place—a sort of a general oneness, if I may be allowed to use so strong an expression." "A sort of a general oneness " was the whole- some, and in our judgment indispensable, principle for which Sir William Robertson fought. Well, Sir William Robertson has failed. But even in overcoming Sir William Robertson's objections by getting rid of him, we cannot say that the Govern- ment have secured all the desiderated " dove-tailedness with regard to time and place," for we learn from Mr. Lloyd George's speech that when there is a difference of opinion between the rival British executives the Government will decide, and the Government in deciding will consult their Chief of Staff. Just as much time, so far as we can see will be lost by this process as would have been lost by Sir William Robertson's plan of beinf -represented by a deputy in France. Towards the end of his speech, however, Mr. Lloyd George admitted that in gaining unity among the Allies- the unity of British military control might be lost. Here are his words :— " Mere are friends of ours who have honest misgivings that the arrangements we made might secure the unity of the first but im- peril the second. That would be a misfortune. If the House were to accept the Government's explanation to-day, I would not regard it as a mandate not to take all the necessary steps compatible with the main purposes of Allied unity to remove every legitimate cause of anxiety on that score."
These words show that there is room for changes in detail.
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