It seems too extraordinary that Mr. Lloyd George should not
see that this high tribute to Sir Henry Wilson's sagacity is an amazing reflection upon his own. Or was he in so generous a mood that he was determined to pay the •compliment in spite of its obvious reactions ? How was it, we ask, that the War Cabinet, although it was told by Sir Henry Wilson in January, 1918, exactly what was going to happen at the end of March, kept great reserves at home • and• allowed C.teneral Gough's army to he overwhelmed ? Surely there must be some answer to this question. Nor is this all. It is not merely. that Mr. Lloyd George, after hearing Sir Henry Wilson's prediction, kept great reserves at home which could not go to the -rescue till it was almost too late—he had even proposed in October, 1917, when anxiety must already have been great (see Sir Charles Callwell's
recent article in Blackwood's Magazine) that a large number of troops. should be sent away from the Western Front to Syria. True, Mr. Lloyd George thought they could be back again from their winter excursion by the spring; But what a proposal ! As Sir Charles Callwell pointed- out, the first troops to reach Syria would have been re-embarking by the time the last were arriving. What the explanation of these contradictions may be we do not know, but some day of course the matter must be cleared up.
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