TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE HISTORY OF MR. LLOYD GEORGE'S FIRST AND LAST (?) ADMINISTRATION.-11.
nth AMATEUR STRATEGIST AND THE SOLDIERS.
TIIE main point to'retneinber in Mr. Lloyd George's rela- tions With the soldiers is' that he has always regarded himself as a strategist. That was natural, no doubt inevitable; in a man- sincerely and _patriotically anxious that we should win the war, and that he should be the Man who Would enable us to win it, and also in a' Man of a sensitive and eagernature and a very quick brain. For such a man strategy offers terrible temptations. It geeing so simple, indeed is so Simple, when considered in the abstract. With a' map and an linfigina- tion one may covet the world with one's fleets and armies, deal the enemy a shrewd blow here, make an unexpected diversion there, give "him an tinforeSeen thrust on one' flank, and before he is torero' of -What you are' at hit him harden the other'flank or'in the back. It is only when one comes to the application of strategy that any difficultyarises foranrian'Who has the power of ratiocination; and -prides hiniself on being able to raise a ladder of legIc' from a bate of fad, or, What is unfortunately not quite the Mine, from preiniSties issuing& to be facts. Mat nadonbtapecially tempted-Mr. Lloyd George along the primrose path of the amateur strategist Was the long series of blunders which: he could point to on the part of the professionals. They could be shown to have made many mistakes'in- spite 'of their great professional knowledge, mistakes which he or any other civilian could see readily enough. Therefore who could deny the conclusion that the amateur with-a real instinct for war might quickly beeoine as good a strategist as' the professional ?
Alas for himself and for the nation ! Mr. Lloyd George forgot that these very mistakes were a proof, not that the amateur could: be' as good as the professional, but that strategy when 'applied is so appallingly difficult an art 'that even the most carefully trained Men may make blunders, which when they have been' Made, but net till then, look as if they were something that even a child should have avoided. Mr. Lloyd George forgot what Crtnnwell told the House of Commons in his first Parliamentary speech :- "This I would recommend to your prudence, not to insist on My complaint or oversight of any Commander-in-Chief upon any occasion whatsoever. For as I must acknowledge myself guilty of oversights, so I know they can rarely be avoided in military matters."* 'But Mr. Lloyd George in his complacency not only did not remember the inherent difficulty of military affairs. He also failed to remember Certain Considerations which, had Ire been • Though not missile to 911r aroment, the next sentence Is .so.strildng pg. so apposite to the general situation that we feel we must recall it to our readete Min& f•—• " Therefore, waiving a strict' enquiry into the cause of these things, let us apply curs-rivee to the remedy, which ts most necessary. And I hope we have such true ..ETisnai hearts; mid 'zealot* aftectkins towardathe getter:0 weal odymiNotheKedpntry, as no Membera of either llomie will scruple to deny themselves, and their own iirtvels taterests, for the public good." aixtan Of Cool judgment instead of one of licipliaiard expedients Mitt wild guesses; would have kept hint. straight. Lord Cromer once said to the present writer that when he was ruling Egypt an enormous - number' of .efeellent schemes for refbrin and • fdr the general developnient and 'improvement of the country used to be' brought to MM. He usually found, however, that whenliehadaPplied to these suggestions two simple questions they vanished away. The first-question Was, " What will it cost?" The seeond *at, "Where is the money to opine frOin'0' In considering a strategicPlan the wise Man asks tWo similar qneations. The' first is, How many men will it reqUire ? " The second is; "'Where are they to' corue froth ? " I these two queStions are honestly asked* and' answered, half the amateur strategist's projects return to the vapour from which' they Were* Originally CondenSed; A ciVilian cannot of course in Most cases -inftWer- these intricate 'technical' ques- tions hiniffelf, but if he is Wise he puts' them to the 'experts and asks 'far' details. Then- ccnnes the personal test. If he is prudent, effielent,- and:a man of judgment; he wilt reconsider his plans, ncit once but a dozen times, in the light afforded by the attempt to translate theory into practice. If is hot-headed and without judgment, he Will stored, 'at his advisers as men who are -alvie.ys raisirig difficulties, when their duty is to find him expedients. Like the Israelitish ruler of old, he:will-insist : " Prophesy-not unto' us right things, speak unto us smooth things." In a word, the amateur strategist is apt to be so much in love with his own schemes that opposi- tion' to: theth -soon 'assumes' the form of-personal-injury, and a desire on the part of the critic to take from him the honour and glory of winning the war.
It was in a- psychological 'mood of this kind, and 'filled with propositions With -which he had-fallen in love, that Mr. Lloyd George assumedsupremapower. He approached the problems of the war with a whole stock of untested strategical views opposition to which, or even -criticism, seemed almost ,a crime. When the advice of colleagues whom he could not ignore recommended caution, and when the force of' circumstances prevented • instant application, he was fretted, as his public utterances showed, almost beyond endurance. Those. who opposed him- were no true friEinds of their country, but obstacles to the winning of the war which must be removed at all costs: The fanaticism of the amateur strategist went even further than this. Not only did the Men Who Opposed him become anathema, but even inanimate things took on this sinister hue. The whole Western Front became a subject for' hatred,-- for it was a- hindrance to golden schemes that ranged from the Po to the Jordan, from Laibach to Aleppo, from Jerusalem to Trieste ! In a word, the Prime Minister mano3uvred himself into the fatal Position of a man With a violent parti kris. He was not merely an Easterner in his military politics, hut the West and the Westerners came to be regarded as' forces which* it Was his diity to combat and Overcome.
THE PARIS SPEECH.
Let those who think we are exaggerating in- regard to 'the war psychology of the Prime Minister carefully re-read the Paris speech. If they will do this sincerely,' and without' the deterinuiatiOn' to- show that Mr: Lloyd George Was right and his critics wrong, We venture to predict that they will find ample proof that the zeal of the -amateur strategist had eaten Min up. In that -speech, in order to diseredit' the Western Front as much as possible, he syioke about "the absence of real unity in the: *kr direction of the Allied countries," and insisted that "unity, in so far as strategy went, was pure make-believe." Even the victories gained by our troops turned sour in' his mouth from the faotthat-they Were achieved on the Western -Front. "We 'have Won great victories," Said Mr. Lloyd George. "When I look at the appalling casualty-lists I sometimes wish it had not been 'necessary to win so tnany."
The' Prime Minister in-the Paris speech, which, as he told the House of Commons, was, not a passionate outburst but a meat carefully prepared' and-thought-out, stocktaking of the military situation, almost Upbraided his colleaguessand- himself for not having taken the opportunity of prosecuting the war in its early stages in what he calls the "important South "- i.e., Serbia "While we'were hammering with the whole of. our Might at the Impenetrable barrier in the West, the Central Powers, feeling con- fident that we could not break through, threW their Weight on-that little country, &tidied her resistance, opened" the gate to the East, and unlOcked.great *tomer& coin, cattle, and- rmnerals, yea, tin' loelred the Ikior of hope--411- easential-to enable-Ckwmany to-stistait her struggle." Never has a rater -number of fallacies and misstatements been crowded into so small a body of words. To begin with, Mr. Lloyd George spoke of "hammering with the whole of our might at the impenetrable barrier in the West" as if in 1915 we had got any amount of force for the purpose, and as if the barrier was by its nature too strong. That is an utterly topsy-turvy way of stating the position. The barrier was impenetrable because we were not strong enough. As a matter-of fact, what seemed to Mr. Lloyd George like "h.ain- in esing with the whole of our might" to break through was very largely in itself an example of the offensive-defensive. Th ough we hoped we might break through, what we and our French Allies were in reality doing, and were only just able to do, was to atop the Germans from breaking through and seizing Paris and the coast towns. But, apart from this, what prevented us from helping Serbia in 1915 was the fact that we had used up the only force available for the purpose in the Gallipoli expedition, which was a full-fledged example of co-ordination of effort. We have nothing to reproach our- selves with in regard to Serbia, unless it be the Gallipoli expedition, to which Mr. Lloyd George had given his full consent, for, remember, he was then, next to the Prime Minister, by far the most important man in the Ministry, and the colleague who sat by him, Mr. Winston Churchill, whom he has recalled to the Ministry, was the author and originator of the Gallipoli expedition.
But Mr. Lloyd George was not content to hint a fault or hesitate dislike in regard to the strategy, to which he was opposed. He must rub it in. "Why," he asked, "was this incredible blunder perpetrated ? " The answer, he told is simple. "Because it was no one's business in particular to guard the gates of the Balkans." Our answer is far simpler and far truer : Because, unhappily, we did not possess military power sufficient to prevent the Germans breaking through in France and Flanders, and also for a Balkan campaign. When he makes the retort that troops were ultimately sent, but as usual too late, the answer again is that it was impossible to send them earlier, and that when they were sent unity of action, which is Mr. Lloyd George's ideal, demanded that they should be sent to Salonika.
What Mr. Lloyd George said about Serbia and the "im- portant South" had its counterpart in his amazing description of what he regards as our failure to help Rumania. But perhaps the worst example of the amateur strategist at large to be found in the Paris speech was the passage dealing with Italy. Mr. Lloyd George evidently thought that we ought not only to have urged General Cadorna to make a spring at Vienna, but that we and the French should have sent him troops to join in that adventure. But now comes another of Kr. Lloyd George's incredible lapses. He,actually used these words, words which will seem like a burning injustice to many soldiers : "When we advance a kilometre into the enemy's lines, snatch a small shattered village out of his cruel grip, capture a few hundreds of his soldiers, we shout with unfeigned joy." Then he goes on to ask in his usual ad captandum fashion :— " But what if we had advanced 50 kilometres beyond his lines, and made 200,000 of his soldiers prisoners and taken 2,500 of his beat guns, with enormous quantities of ammuntion and stores ? What print would we have for our headlines ? "
Alas ! the answer to this "desperate saying" has already been given, and is written for all Men to read on the fields of Picardy and Flanders. Mr: Lloyd George reserved for his peroration what was perhaps the strongest possible proof of what we can only, describe as the national misfortune that omniscience in strategy has become his foible :— "We shall win, but I want to win as soon as possible. I want to win with as little sacrifice as possible. I want as many as possible of that splendid young manhood which has helped to win victory to live through to enjoy its fruits."
We venture to say that of all the rash and wrong-headed things said during this war, this is the worst. Of course Mr. Lloyd George, like every one else, wants to save the lives of our glorious soldiers. Who is there who has not some one inexpressibly dear to him in hazard at the front ? But what will these good men and true think when they are told that the Prime Minister wants to win the war "with as little sacrifice as possible " / They know—they have learnt it in the hardest school—that you cannot win on any such principle as that, that he who seeks to save his life will lose it, and that he who seeks to win cheaply will lose dearly. We have not, as our readers know, ever doubted of victory, but we confess to having been terrified when last November the Prime Minister used the words we have just given.
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