THE SITUATION ON THE WESTERN FRONT IN THS LIGHT OF
THE PARIS SPEECH.
We have quoted enough from the Paris speech to show the mind of the sophist in strategy. We have only to look to the Western Front to see its tragical application. Instead of the Western Front proving impenetrable, the enemy has penetrated it, and brought us nearer a position of peril than we have been in since the retreat from Mons. There has been "real unity in the war direction of the Allied countries," but even if it may be an advantage per se, which we are not going to deny, it has proved a very poor substitute for Brigades and Divisions. Let us make no mistake. The amateur strategist contrived to get his way to the full upon the Western Front. He beat the Military Authorities, though it took him over a year to do so. While the Germans were accumulating men and guns and every adjunct for attack on the Western Front and concentrating overwhelming numbers there, the amateur strategist was meeting the danger with an exactly reverse process. We were pulling down while they were piling up. While they were crowding their trenches, we were making it necessary to hold ours lightly. Where they added new Divisions, we broke up old ones. Where they put more units into a particular sector of the front, we put in fewer.
We are not going into a computation of terminological exactitude as to whether "the Military Authorities" assented to or dissented from what happened in regard to man- power on the Western Front, nor shhli weask who is connoted by that vague phrase "Military Authorities," or who gave this or that order. We only know that as a matter of fact a Battalion was taken away from every Brigade in the West (see the statements constantly made of late in Parliament and in the Press and never contradicted), with the result that the Infantry was reduced by a quarter. Immediately on the top of this bleeding of the Army white came the order to take over another forty miles of difficult country ! It sounds incredible, but it is true. Whether it was the Military Authorities at Paris or those at Versailles, or G.H.Q., B.E.F., or the War Office, or the Army Council, who gave their assent to this policy, we do not know, and, as we have said, we do not now attempt to inquire. But this we do know, and say it without fear of contradiction. If our amateur strategist and if the War Cabinet had been possessed of ordinary common-sense, they would never have sanctioned the proposal to reduce assets and increase liabilities, even if all expert opinion had been favourable, which it certainly was not. We mean by this that they should in the supposed circumstances have told the soldiers : "If you think you can first reduce the Army by a quarter and then add something like twenty per cent. to your responsibilities, we shall not accept your advice. We axe not experts, but we have wits enough to see that this is madness. Instead of that, our amateurs, even if they did not order the reduction in numbers and the attenuation of the line, jumped at the willingness of somebody called the " MilitarrAuthorities " to take responsibility for a venture so perilous. They got rid of Sir William Robertson—no one has ever ventured to suggest that he was the Military Authority who assented to the policy of reduction and extension—and then went on their way rejoicing—for about a couple of months.
The result has been exactly what might have been expected. Our line has been broken in, not from any want of so-called good Staff work, or from any failure on the part of our men, or from bad generalship, but simply and solely because if in modern war fourteen Divisions are opposed by fifty—see General Gough's statement—the fourteen must sooner or later succumb.
No doubt we shall be told that all this is captious, that the amateur strategist had to reduce the number of Battalions in every Brigade at the front by a fourth because there were not sufficient men available to keep up the old numbers, and that we had to take over the forty miles of new line because to have refused to do so would have been unfair to our Allies. Our answer to this plea of necessity is that if the amateur strategist had thought of the Western Front rather than of wild-cat schemes in regard to Aleppo and Laibach, he would have seen eighteen months ago that our very first and greatest need was more men, and, what was equally important, more men for the Western Front. That being so, there would have been a double process of conservation. He would have deflected no more men to any other theatre of the war, and he would now be putting into the line the men whom he would have been getting ready for the emergency ever since he came into power. In December, 1916, all the omens were favourable for increasing our Man-Power to the utter- most. He could have taken three hundred thousand younges men from Ireland with comparative ease, and he could have passed an Act for arraying all the men in the kingdom up to fifty. Then, instead of having to reduce our numbers at the front, we should have actually been able to augment them. We should have had enough men to hold the new forty-mile front not merely lightly, but strongly, and therefore adequately. Further, we might also have had a greatly increased Reserve Army. We have not thought it light or expedient to go into technical details, but have merely pointed out in general terms the dangers which come from the amateur strategist when that.amateur is a man wayward rather than wise, hasty and feverish rather than calm and cool in judgment. If we thought that Mr. Lloyd George was teachable, that he had learned his lesson, and that he would not transgress again, his past faults need not be held ground for his dismissal from power. Since, however, he is clearly unteachable and what lie has done is but earnest of the things that he will do if he is allowed to remain in power, we should be wanting in duty if we did not speak out plainly and clearly. Mr. Lloyd George's mental attitude in regard to strategy, and indeed in regard to most things, is that which Pope painted in the celebrated couplet :- "With too much quickness ever to be taught,
With too much thinking to have common thought."
(To be continued.)
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