TOPICS OF THE DAX.
THE PRIME MINISTER'S DEFENCE.
ACAREFUL reading of the speech which Mr. Lloyd George delivered in the House of Commons on Monday leave one wondering why he should have made the reckless and most unfortunate speech in France which we thought it our duty to condemn so strongly last week. His House of Commons speech was, from first to last, a defence of his Paris speech, and no one who knows how well Mr. Lloyd George has justified his reputation for what he himself called "political strategy" will need to be told that he made the very most of his opportunities. He had what is called " a great Parliamentary success." When, however, that success is divorced from its physical surroundings, from the sym- pathetic excitement of a crowded House, and from the Prime Minister's own gifts of oratory and his highly cultivated art of playing winningly upon the susceptibilities of his audience, we cannot in any sense describe it as satisfactory. When his words are read in cold print they seem to us a very irrelevant defence of a speech which never ought to have been delivered. We shall try presently to give our reasons for saying this, and for refusing, as we must reluctantly do, to abate a single word of the strong criticism which we made last week. But before we go further let us say at once that the principal fact of the moment—the fact which governs the whole situa- tion—is that the House of Commons, as representing the nation, accepted Mr. Lloyd George's defence. That being so, we mean as far as possible also to accept the situation. Nothing is further from our thoughts than any intention to indulge in a policy of pin-pricks. So long as the Prime Minister governs with the consent of the majority during a war, it is essential for the whole nation, so far as it reasonably and honestly can, to sink private opinions and to join in strengthen- ing the hands of the supreme authority. Only what may be judged to be the need for criticism on really vital matters can justify a critic in speaking his whole mind. In unessential matters he must regard the maintenance of an atmosphere of general goodwill, and a sense of united effort, as objects better worth attaining than any results which might be achieved by perpetual harping upon innumerable small points. We believed, and we still most firmly believe, that the excep- tional situation created by Mr. Lloyd George's Paris speech justified extremely plain speaking. We recorded our protest, and, as we have said, we regret that we cannot withdraw any part of the terms in which it was expressed ; but we have no intention of reiterating the protest after we have fulfilled our task of examining Mr. Lloyd George's defence in the Molise of Commons on Monday. Time must be the judge. We must wait upon events ; and we shall of course support the Government as whole-heartedly as we can in their conduct of the war, with the natural and necessary reservation that the right of reasonable criticism remains.
. Mr. Asquith's analysis of the Paris speech was very sensible, and also restrained and reasonable, as was to he expected. He condemned the idea, which possibly might be taken as implicit in Mr. Lloyd George's Paris speech, of appointing a Generalissimo for all the Allied forces in the field. He con- demned the absence from the Central War Council of naval opinion, and drew attention to the great danger we indicated last week of a disastrous difference of opinion between the British Chief of Staff and the British Commander-in-Chief on the one hand, and the Central War Council on the other. The danger seems to us to be a very real one, and in essence it remains. Suppose that Mr. Lloyd George, indulging his inclinations towards a strategical campaign in what he called the " important South," should obtain encouragement for his plans from the Central War Council, while he was resisted by, say, Sir William Robertson and Sir Douglas Haig. He would be able to say that, although he wished to show the greatest possible deference to such experienced soldiers as Sir William Robertson and Sir Douglas Haig, it was his duty to point out that he had the authority of extremely important members of the Alliance for saying that a change of strategy was desired. It is impossible to fathom the disastrous possi- bilities of bringing arguments of that kind to bear upon a strictly military problem. In his answer to Mr. Asquith the Prime Minister tried to show that all difficulties of this sort were impossible. " When the General Staff and the Central War Council differ," he said, " the Cabinet will decide." He went on to explain that the change was not directed against any Staff or against. any Commander-in-Chief. It is satis- factory to know that ; but it does not of course dispose of the unfortunate truth that the Paris speech was in tone and substance a disparagement of what had been achieved in the past by the British Staff working in unity with our Allies. Mr. Asquith had an easy task in showing that Mr. Lloyd George's censure in the Paris speech of the Serbian and Rumanian failures was entirely undeserved. Mr. Lloyd George spoke as though we had failed through mere delay or selfishness or stupidity, whereas in fact we failed, both in Serbia and Rumania, for the all-sufficient reason that we had not enough men. In the case of Rumania, it is well known that our military advisers were not at all anxious for Rumania to come into the war at the exact moment when she did, and that, trusting to the support of Russia, she embarked upon a scheme of military operations which was regarded here with grave doubt. Russian co-operation failed and the result was inevitable. To represent that as a failure which might have been avoided by co-ordination is a travesty of the truth. So again with the battle of the Somme. It was a very deliberate effort in united action because it was intended to draw off pressure from Verdun, and so far as it could it certainly accomplished its purpose. As for the Russian failure, in spite of Mr. Lloyd George's sarcastic phrases about our faithlessness to the principle of being our brother's keeper, no Central War Council, however perfect, could have foreseen or checked the Russian Revolution. Yet the Russian paralysis in the field has been due to that Revolution and to nothing else.
Mr. Asquith was particularly impressive and helpful in his condemnation of Mr. Lloyd George's phrases in the Paris speech about our huge losses on the Western Front. No more cruel and injurious charge is possible against a Com- mander-in-Chief than that he is wasting the lives of his men. It is the one charge above all others against which a Com- mander-in-Chief should be most carefully protected. Directly it begins to be said that a leader is running up an enormous butcher's bill without any corresponding results to show for it., a most insidious process appears of undermining the con- fidence, and therefore the resolution, of the soldiers who are under the command of that leader. Of course we know Mr. Lloyd George never meant that his words should bear such a meaning. He is far too good a patriot ever to dream of such a thing. Nobody can have seriously imputed such an intention to him. But we fear that when his words are carefully examined, and for our part we have read them again and again, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the general effect of his remarks at Paris was to suggest that lives were being thrown away. In the House of Commons he did his best to correct that impression, but we cannot help saying that the words used at Paris should never have been uttered, and that, though we sincerely hops and believe that no harm may be done, the risk was very great. They were discreditable words, and we trust that no head of a British Government will ever repeat them. As for Mr. Asquith's criticism about naval representation on the Central War Council, Mr. Lloyd George agreed that the Navy must be represented, and this undoubtedly will be done.
We must now comment on the heart of Mr. Lloyd George's defence, which was that his Paris speech was an intentionally disagreeable pronouncement. He said, in effect, that he thought people were asleep and needed waking up, and that the only way to wake them up was to make their flesh creep by saying something exceptionally provocative and startling. We see the point ; but the only possible comment seems to us to be that if our responsible statesmen take to making speeches which admittedly do not express their real meanin,g, and arc delivered as it were with the speaker's tongue in his cheek in order to produce an artificial atmosphere favourable to some particular scheme, we shall not know where we are. We should have vastly preferred to think that Mr. Lloyd George spoke in great anger and in a hurry, and was betrayed by a momentary passion. As it is, we have to take his word for it that he spoke• at Paris, after carefully preparing his words, with the explicit object of stirring up feeling by using the unjust and misleading phrases which he did use. Nor can we appreciate the need for this agitation of public thought on the subject of the war. Mr. Lloyd George confessed that before he went to Paris the scheme for the Central War Council had already been agreed upon by the Cabinet. In other words, the creation of the scheme did not in the least depend upon national support. It was already an accom- plished fact. The more, in short, we meditate upon Mr. Lloyd George's reasons for his outburst at Paris, the more mys- terious they become. If Mr. Lloyd George did not speak at random, we can fairly say the same of ourselves in looking back upon our condemnation of the injustice and mischievousness • of his Paris speech. As a matter of fact, as long ago as December, 1916, when Mr. Lloyd George rose to the high office of Prime Minister, we pointed out that his temperamental instability of action might be a danger, and we said that we earnestly looked to his fellow-members in the Cabinet to act as a restraining and controlling force. More than once since then we have reluctantly commented on instances of his levity—using that word in its sense of a want of responsi- bility. But we must say that no instance of his levity to which we have ever had to refer compares in extravagance and enormity with his performance at Paris. In his defence in the House of Commons he assured the nation that he placed profound reliance upon the views of the Chief of Staff and the Commander-in-Chief, but it is really impossible to reconcile this statement with the manner in which he flaunted in his Paris speech the advice of some anonymous American correspondent who had pointed out the great advantages of a combined British and Italian advance by way of Laibach against Vienna. The starring of this plan was a remarkable instance of the kind of strategy which Mr. Lloyd George had to set against the strategy of our trusted soldiers when he declared that hitherto unity, " in so far as strategy went," had been " pure make-believe." Commenting upon this Italian •scheme, the well-known and experienced Military Correspondent of the Times wrote last Saturday as follows :— " The desire of the Prime Minister for an Allied campaign in Italy certainly existed in January last, but when ho reached Paris from Rome he probably changed his mind. Anybody can sug- gest campaigns anywhere. The difficulty is to execute them success- fully. Germany has five lines of rail debouching upon the northern borders of the Tirol. Austria has five more loading towards the Isonzo. To these 10 lines we can only oppose the two leading from France to Italy, and while we here are 1,000 miles from tho Isonzo Austria is on the river. Can the Prime Minister suppose that the Italian Armies were ever in a condition to march on Vienna We should have fought under the extreme disadvantage of the Tirol and other mountains in the enemy's hands on our flank, and any General who had attempted it without first occupying the Trentino would have deserved to be shot. The Italian disasters wore duo, like the Russian, to the success of German propaganda acting upon internal weaknesses, and it would have been better had Mr. Lloyd George adhered to facts."
Again, if Mr. Lloyd George had felt full confidence in the management of affairs at the front, he could hardly have decided to place our Generals under French command. Yet a very large number of the French newspapers immediately after the publication of Mr. Lloyd George's Paris speech assumed it as being indisputably his meaning that there should be a French Generalissimo for the Allies. We our- selves felt doubtful as to Mr. Lloyd George's meaning on that point, but a large number of Frenchmen were in no doubt whatever. That was how they read his speech without the least hesitation. Of course we have a profound admiration for the French qualities of leadership, and indeed for all the military virtues which the French possess in such abounding measure, but we feel sure that the most experienced French soldiers heartily agree with us in thinking that such an Army as ours fights best under its own commanders, and that we might even claim a right for our men so to fight by reason of their numbers, their skill, and their past sacrifices. In referring to Mr. Lloyd George's words about a French supreme command, the Military Correspondent of the Times said
Lloyd George does not give the date of the Paris Conference to which he refers, but apparently he had in his mind the mooting at the end of the year 1910,whon the plan of General Joffre for 1917 was approved. But what followed was that Joffro was put aside, Nivelle substituted, and the British Army practically placed under Nivelle at the Calais Conference by Mr. Lloyd George without consulting the soldiers beforehand. Our losses in the later stages of the Arrasbattle were due to our loyal efforts to take the strain off Nivelle, and the tardy opening of our Flanders offensive was due to the delay thereby caused. The subordination of our main Armies to the French at the Calais Conference broke down in practice. "
In other words, Mr. Lloyd George's decision exposed British arms to the risk of being involved in an operation which was a tremendous disappointment to the French nation and which they have never ceased to deplore. The Military Correspondent of the Times, in fine, was more than justified when he wrote the following sentence : " When, however, the Prime Minister surveys the strategy of the past and rates the follies of his British and foreign colleagues and lays the responsi- bility for Allied misfortunes upon them, while forgetting his own share in those great transactions, it becomes necessary to speak out."
We might quote many instances of the unhappy and dangerous effects of Mr. Lloyd George's speech, but a mere accumulation of examples would be unnecessary and un- desirable. Take this, however, as an instance. The Man- chester Guardian is a paper which whole-heartedly adopted Mr. Lloyd George's point of view in the recent controversy. The Political Correspondent of that paper in London wrote these words : " The Army chiefs have made promises which they have not fulfilled " ; and added : " There are other records which are not published but which might be muds public." These words mean, of course, that the writer con- templated an open conflict between the Prime Minister and the military chiefs, and thought that that conflict could not be deferred. He predicted that if the dispute ended in a General Election, the Prime Minister would win. We most sincerely hope and believe that all such danger is past, that the military chiefs are perfectly secure in their position, and that their strategy, which enjoys the deep confidence of the nation, will not be interfered with. But this incident is a proof that most insidious and disruptive forces were being let loose. No man could say with certainty what might not have hap- pened if Mr. Lloyd George had nut in the House of Commons on Monday unsaid a great deal of his Paris speech, for that is undoubtedly what he did. Let us take one more instance, or rather not an instance but an illustration. Every patriotic man who tries carefully to abide not only by the spirit bat by the letter of the Defence of the Realm Regulations, knows that he can commit no greater offence than to undermine the military spirit of the troops at the front--which is only another expression for the confidence of the troops in their leaders. Now suppose that sonic private person had used such an expression as Mr. Lloyd George used in his Paris speech- " When we advance a kilometre into the enemy's lines, snatch a small shattered village out of his cruel grip, and capture a few hundreds of his soldiers, we shout with unfeigned joy "- and had proceeded, like Mr. Lloyd George, to contrast the victory of the Germans in Italy (thousands of prisoners and guns captured) with our slow progress on the Western Front, of course very much to the enemy's advantage. We try to imagine what would have happened if the private person had written those words and submitted them to the Press Bureau. An official at the Press Bureau would no doubt have turned up Paragraph 27 of the Defense of the It _Wm Regulations an I there would have read as follows :— " No person shall by word of mouth or in writing or in any newspaper, periodical, book, circular, or othor printed publication : (a) Spread false reports or make false statements ; or
(6) Spread reports or make °totem nits intended or likely to muss disaffection to His Majesty or to interfere with the success of His Majesty's forces or of the forces of any of His Majesty's Allies by land or sea or to prejudice His Majesty's relations with foreign Powers ; or (c) Spread reports or make statements intended or likely to prejudice the recruiting, tr. • • g, discipline or administration of any of His Majesty's forces."
The Prime Minister is, of course, a highly privileged person, and we must not be guilty of the absurdity of judging hint quite by the ordinary rules, and, moreover, we have his own admission that he distorted the facts for a particular purpose. But when all has been admitted, and Mr. Lloyd George's defence has been given the whole credit that may be due to it, the Paris speech remains a very unpleasant recollection.
Now let us say again in a very few words what we said at the beginning. As Mr. Lloyd George has told us that he did not really mean all that he said, bat that his speech was an artificial device to procure a particular end, we absolutely accept the situation because the House of Commons has accepted it. We understand that the Staff and the Com- mander-in-Chief are not to be overridden. We shall do all that we can to support the Government and Mr. Lloyd George personally, as we have done in the pact. The misgivings stet have often felt, and to which we have given expression several times, may remain, for of course it is difficult to forgot in a moment what has just happened ; but we most earnestly hope that our misgivings about Mr. Lloyd George's int tbility may prove to be wrong. In our estimate of his political character there is, as we need hardly say, an enormous amount to be set down on the credit side. There is his inventiveness, his resource, his personal magnetism, his driving-power—which was displayed in its full force when he created both the Ministry of Munitions and the will in the nation to supply the Army with all the ammunition which it needed—his exuberant if spasmodic optimism, and his power of conveying enthusiasm to others. All these things, even when we have written adversely of Mr. Lloyd George's conduct, we have taken for granted. We hope and trust that in the future these fine qualities may always be in the ascendant, and that the un- happy tendency to instability may not suddenly overthrow them all and fatally transfer everything from the credit to the debit side. For the proof, as we have said, we must wait on events. Time will decide. We can only hope that our fears may turn out to be utterly unfounded. We pray that it may be so. No one could be more genuinely pleasel
if those misgivings should prove to be wholly wrong and unworthy than we should be ourselves. We may even go further, and say that, so far as it lies in our power, we shall try to prove ourselves wrong ; we shall try to make the facts tell against us.
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