The Burnt Paper

From Miss Nancy Maurice, the daughter of Sir Frederick Maurice SIR,—Lord Templewood, in his review of Lord Beaverbrook's Men and Power : 1917-1918, has shown how J. T. Davies's destruction of a War Office document enabled Lloyd George to win a Parliamentary triumph in the Maurice debate.

The most sinister aspect of Davies's action is the silence he maintained about it. The document he destroyed was sent by the War Office to No. 10 Downing Street on April 18 to correct material previously provided for a reply to a Parliamentary question.

At that date General Maurice's letter, which appeared in the press on May 7, had not been written nor was it contem- plated, and when he 'wrote it General Maurice knew nothing of the incorrect figures given in answer to the Parliamentary question on April 18.

He dealt with a different statement, also incorrect, made by Lloyd George on April 9. In the concluding Passage of his speech in the Maurice debate on May 9, Lloyd George said, `Days have been occupied in hunting up records and minutes and letters and proces-verbaux. . .

if Davies had not kept silent during these researches it would have become apparent that the figures which Lloyd George had given to the House of Commons on April 18 had contained a grave error, which had been corrected by the document Davies destroyed, and the true facts concerning thee strength of the forces in France would have emerged. But this was not what happened. On the contrary, Davies's action and his subsequent silence enabled his master to use in the debate to deceive the House of Commons figures which Davies at least knew to be false.

One can only conclude that the concern of those whose duty it was to prepare the brief for the Prime Minister's speech was not to establish the truth but rather to obscure it, so as to provide him with debating material to demolish General Maurice's case, which, as Lord Templewood shows, he most effectively did.

Many people have wondered why the truth has not emerged till now. Why, after the Maurice debate, were Lloyd George's figures not challenged, and the truth of General Maurice's charges substantiated?

May I give a partial explanation?

General Maurice had given up his post as Director of Military Operations and left the War Office several weeks before his letter was published. After it, he was discharged from the Army on half pay, and had no access to War Office documents. He knew, of course, that the statement Lloyd George had made was wrong, but, without access to the War Office records, he could not prove it. It was not until four years later, in 1922, that he was able, thanks to the help of the Duke of Northumberland, to obtain proof of the correction sent by the War Office to No. 10 Downing Street on April 18. He never knew that this correction had not reached the Prime Minister when he gave the wrong figures to the House in reply to the Parliamentary question, and that Davies had sub- sequently destroyed it, thus enabling Lloyd George to repeat the mis-statement in the Maurice debate three weeks later.

Having his proof, he wrote to the Prime Minister on July 15, 1922.

Lloyd George, in his reply, sent through a Secretary, con- fined himself to stating that 'what he said in 1918 he said in good faith upon the information supplied to him.' (Here. Davies's silence reverberates over the years.) General Maurice then published a pamphlet giving an account of the whole affair. The missing part of the story con- cerned Davies's action which Lord Beaverbrook has now revealed.

In conclusion, may I make one point on which I think Lord Templewood may be mistaken? He writes that Haig would have been liquidated, as were Lloyd George's other victims, `if the German offensive had not collapsed in the summer of 1918.'

A main 'reason that caused General Maurice to write his letter when he did was that he had learnt of a scheme to remove Haig from the command in May, 1918. To the end of his life he was convinced that this scheme came 'to nothing because of his letter. Lloyd George, although victorious in the Commons, had had a narrow escape, and made no further attempt to interfere with the military command. General Maurice sacrificed his career because he believed the nation was not being told the truth. The implication that the defeat of March, 1918, was the fault of the Army, and not of the politicians who had disregarded the warnings of their military advisers, was affecting the morale of the forces. Haig's dismissal would have been taken as a sign that the politicians had succeeded in making the Army the scapegoat for their own errors.

In that he prevented this happening, I believe my father was right in believing that his sacrifice had not been made in vain.

I am, dear Sir,—Yours faithfully,

NANCY MAUR ic

5 Albert Studios, Battersea, London, SW 11