The Crisis of March

1918 -

BOOKS OF THE DAY

By R. C. K. ENSOR Wrrn his fifth volume Mr. Lloyd George brings us to the fifth campaigning-season of the War, and conducts us in it as far as May, 1918. As in his previous instalments he prints a good deal of historical material which has not hitherto been pub- lished. Notable instances' are General Smuts's long report (December 19th, 1917) on his negotiations with the Austrian ex-Ambassador, Count Mensdorff ; Balfour's sagacious Memor- andum (December 9th, 1917) on the attitude to be taken to the newly-established Bolshevist Government in Russia ; Foch's far-Seeing Memoranditin (January' 1st; 1018) on the military policy for the ensuing year ; and a great variety of documents relating either to the course of events which made Foch Generalissimo, or those on the basis of which' the British military group inspired by Sir W. Robertson tried to challenge and overthrow the Ministry in power.

The period covers the two great German offensives against the British 'Army : that of March, which sought to driVe a wedge between the British and French armies, and that -of April, farther north, whose objective was the Channel ports. Bah offensives were failures in that they eventually missed their objectives, and so- brought the Gerinans no solid return for their heavy outlay in casualties. But both Put the fortunei of "the Allies in extreme peril and the offensive of March, if;You measure by our losSes of guns and prisoners; was the

heaviest defeat 'ever sustained by British' arms. * . Any probing into its causes must involve an examination

of the man-polder question, and to this Mr. Lloyd George devotes much space and argument. He gives a ftill account of the problern as surveyed by the Cabinet Committee on Man-Power .which was appointed in December, 1917. He has no diffieriltY in showing the contradictions between the

contentions adVanced at different times by the military chiefs; .

nor the often -crudely tendentious character of their estimates.- He administer§ some hard knocks (pi). 2652-L5) to trie Official History of the War. In the end he characterises the charge

that in the spring of 1918 the Army was being of men as " not only false but silly."

The Army, yes ; but what of the armies on the Western

front ? Until the Germans . oyer their Russian divisions, the Allies had *always siace 1915 hid a great numerical superiority. After the trr.n.sfer the enemy may have attained -arething like equality in rifles. But they remained greatiy Inferior Mils, machine-guns, tanks, labour units, and transport—in short, in all the mechanical and mangower-sayirig. resources. -:-How -then-were -they able to seize the initiative and deal their tremendous blows ? Because their armies constituted a single force under a single control with a single general reserve ; while the armies a

the Allies did not. • When at last the Allies removed this handicap by appointing Foch Generalissimo, the hardest corner was turned. The need had been so far recognised in advance by the supreme Council, that they brought into existence the Versailles " executive committee " with Foch as president to control a general reserve. But owing to the particularism of Haig and Petain, each wanting to have absolute control of his own men and Partin being backed at thattinie by Clemenceau, the general reserve never materialised. Hence, when the blow fell, Haig had only his own resources to rely on ; and his

obvious mis-griOution motiveel lIy his Continued hankering after„11. Passchendaele offensiVe,-_ hid made the War Memoirkelffrayld Lloyd George. Vol. V. (Ivor Nicholson - and -Watson. 21i..)

defeat of the Fifth Army inevitable. Mr. Lloyd George agrees with the view which exonerates Gough for this, and casts the blame on his Conimander-in-Chief. • - At the height of the crisis both Haig and Petain lost heart. They talked of retiring in opposite directions—Haig north- ward, Petain southward—and letting the Gerinans thrust them apart. Mr. Lloyd George prints a damning letter from Haig to Main on these lines. It was Foch whose courageous protest stopped the rot ; and it was at this moment of his moral ascendency, that the other two agreed to the " co-ordinating " powers conferred on him at Doullens. These powers were quite inadequate, and it was not till the Beauvais Conference nine days later, that Foch was entrusted with " the strategic direction of military operations " and received " all powers necessary to secure effective realisation."' Haig at Beauvais was at first obstructive ; but after the two- American general's had come out on the side of unity, the' British Commander- in-Chief moved round to the same side. - The British generals indeed throughout had taken, save at the moment of extremist alarm, the sectional view. Sir William Robertson vacated the post of C.I.G.S6 rather than consent to the Versailles plan. Mr: Lloyd George had all along been the protagonist Of unified strategy (it was perhaps his largest single service to the Allied cause), and hence in great measure their antagonism to him. It should in fairness be said, however, that sectionalistir was nearly, or quite, as ramPant_ among the heads of other armies. Pershing had it badly ; so had Petah' ; and so had some of the Italian chielb.

Robertson did not take his defeat lying down, but proCeeded to intrigue to turn the tables on 'the civil GoVernment. His first tool was Colonel Repington, who, in February, with amazing recklessness disclo4ed to the worid=-Meludiiii the enenay—the details of the Versailles plan. Already at that stage it' was Asquith on whom the military eliqUe relied to play their game in the Commons ; and later, when the Maurice letter launched his second attempt, Asqnith was again their chainpion. It was an odd tale for the veteran Liberal ex- Premier to play, yet less surprising when one remembers his instinctive habit of deferring to soldiers and sailors on their own ground. Nor was it unproinising as a gamble for political victory. A good many Conservatives, including some (e.g., Walter Long) in the Cabinet itself, might well have rallied to him under the military banner. But an Asquith-McKenna- Long-Salisbury GoVernment formed in such circumstances would have been helplessly dependent on the soldiers who had brought it office.

In a somewhat similar political enterprise Hindenburg and Ludendorff in 1916 had succeeded. Robertson in 1918 failed. What defeated him was the debate on the merits in the HoUse of Commons. The Government showed that it had the stronger case ; though it could not at the time show fully how strong it was.

This volume contains some very interesting subordinate chapters. Such are the one describing the Smuts-Mensdorff and Kerr-Parodi conversations at midwinter (with the texts of General Smuts's and Lord Lothian's reports) ; the one on the early reactions to the Bolshevist revolution in Russia ; and that on the American armies in France and the endless disputes between the Allies and Pershing over the latter's

determination to delay help till the. Americans could run armies of their own under his command. There is also a full- length character-sketch of Clemenceau, of peculiar interest in view of the two men's joint place in history.:' „. .