Anthony Montague Browne – Long Sunset p283 Fisher used to sign “yours till Hell freezes over”; Churchill later wrote that “Hell did freeze over” p271 Churchill was “undecided” and his speeches of the 1940s were “sybilline” When Churchill spoke to a United Europe meeting in London (?late 1950s) Browne wrote what he later described as a “pretty watery speech” for him, although Churchill added in his own hand a demand that Europe “Unite!”. Browne believed that Churchill did not want Britain to be a full part of a united Europe, but had never given detailed thought to how much integration there should be. On 28 November 1949 he gave a speech at Kingsway Hall in London, in response to a recent speech by Robert Schuman “M. Schuman, declared in the French Parliament this week that 'Without Britain there can be no Europe.' This is entirely true. But our friends on the Continent need have no misgivings. Britain is an integral part of Europe, and we mean to play our part in the revival of her prosperity and greatness. But Britain cannot be thought of as a single State in isolation. She is the founder and centre of a world-wide Empire and Commonwealth.” Britain should not get involved without the Commonwealth. pp271-2 In the conclusion to the “History of the English-Speaking Peoples” (1958) Churchill personally added his conclusion that he looked forward to ever-greater Anglo-American unity. p272 The Zurich speech called for the UK, the USA and the USSR to be sponsors of the new Europe. Back in office in 1951, he did not devote time or energy to European unity, and Eden was also opposed. p273 Ironically de Gaulle’s eventual view that there should be a “Europe des patries” (Europe of Nation States) was similar in many ways to Churchill’s. In January 1963 Churchill drafted a letter to Spaak, in response to his recent speech, writing that “the future of Europe if Britain were to be excluded is black indeed”. The letter was neither finished nor sent. pp273-4 In August 1961 Churchill wrote to his constituency Association chairman. He approved of the application to join, as a “reconnaissance” to see whether terms could be obtained which might permit Britain to join without breaking her links with the Commonwealth. “A fence sitting letter”. Monty visited Churchill in hospital. His comments were “not an invention but a serious misinterpretation of an old and sick man’s views”. After “agonising”, and consulting nobody, Churchill released to the press the letter from August 1961. Browne was concerned that the press might construe silence as support for Montgomery’s claims. De Zulueta sent round a messenger from No 10 to fetch a copy for Macmillan to read. The “milk and water” contents “took the heat off” the dispute. pp274-5 “With but not of” is, in Browne’s view, the best that one can do. The 1940 Plan for Anglo-French Union was a wartime emergency proposal which would not have lasted. Churchill made much of the Special Relationship with the USA but did not think it excluded Europe. Churchill was also active in the late 1940s and early 1950s when France was politically divided and grateful to Britain for her wartime efforts, while the Commonwealth might yet have developed into a world force under leaders like Robert Menzies and Jan Smuts. By the early 1960s France, under de Gaulle, saw leadership of Europe as a substitute for the humiliating loss of her colonies in Indo-China and Algeria, and the Commonwealth had become a geopolitical irrelevance. p276 Browne wrote to Macmillan’s secretary Philip de Zulueta in 1961, asking for ideas on a helpful but non-committal text to be issued in Churchill’s name. Nothing came of this. Browne later (in the 1990s) wrote that if he had known for certain what Churchill’s view was, he would have said so and “would no doubt have been abused by one side or the other”. To some extent in his final years he may have veered back towards his emotional attachment to the USA and to Britain’s maritime past. At one point during the war he told de Gaulle something to the effect that “If we have to choose between you and America, it will always be America. If we have choose between the Continent and the open sea, it will always be the open sea”.
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Blake & Louis Churchill pp257-73 P257 On 27 January 1931 Churchill resigned from the Business Committee (Shadow cabinet). P258 Over India Churchill harmed himself by his “verbose, intemperate and bombastic rhetoric”. India Act became law in August 1935. “Churchill’s outlook on foreign policy and defence has been given a retrospective consistency that the facts hardly warrant” As late as 1937 he still thought that Hitler might yet be good for Germany. Churchill supported rearmament but in 1935 he called Mussolini “the greatest lawgiver among living men” and “the Roman genius”. He took no lead over Abyssinia and initially supported Franco over the Spanish Civil War. “Whether he supported the right kind of rearmament is open to argument, and his public xxx of his policy varied over the years influenced by his political prospects”. He hoped for office in May 1935 (when Baldwin succeeded MacDonald) and March 1936. He was shouted down in the House over the Abdication. P259 When Neville Chamberlain became PM, he told Hore-Belisha “If I take him into the Cabinet he will dominate it. He won’t give others the chance of even talking.” Blake “one should not underestimate how tedious people can be who talk on and on at meetings of limited time and tight agenda”. Munich saw a total breach between Churchill and the Tory hierarchy. He had a reputation as a bore who could empty the Chamber. P260 Halifax met Chamberlain at Heston on 2 October 1940; he urged the inclusion of Churchill, Eden and labour. Churchill’s speech 5 October “we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat” he had to pause because of heckling. P261 Chamberlain had originally intended to exclude the Service Ministers from the War Cabinet as in 1917-19. An April 1939 poll had Eden as the choice of 38%, Halifax and Churchill on 7% each. Eden was not a member of the War Cabinet and was not even considered from Prime Minister in 1940. Graf Spee, Royal Oak, Courageous, Norway campaign “was a disaster from beginning to end” and “had sinister echoes of the Dardanelles”. P262 Attlee had not originally intended to push for a vote on Norway, until he saw the government in disarray. Amery, Lloyd George, Churchill defended the government with a straight bat. Majority fell from 213 to 81; 33 Tories and 8 hangers-on voted against, 60 abstained. P263 advice from an outgoing Prime Minister is not “binding” like an appointment of a Field marshal or a bishop; it would be a reduction ad absurdum if a Prime Minister could simply nominate his successor. A general election was regarded as undesirable in wartime and the requirement to hold one in 1940 had been suspended for the duration of hostilities. P264 Halifax had been a sceptic about Munich and had advised Chamberlain not to hold a general election after it. “Had he lived in another era, he might have been a Mazarin or a Richelieu”. Churchill had a dubious reputation, and his hangers-on even less so. The Eden group kept its distance. Had there been a formal leadership election, there is little doubt that the party would have chosen Halifax. P265 “Labour had a veto, not a choice” On morning of 9 May division, Chamberlain summoned Halifax to see him at Number Ten. According to Halifax diary, he urged Halifax to take job, and hinted that he might serve under him. Halifax stressed that it was not sensible as he was not in Commons; Chamberlain poo-pooed these concerns. “left me with a bad stomach ache”. Told him, as he had the previous day, that if labour insisted on serving under him and him alone he would refuse, and see if that “would make them budge”. Halifax had also received, via Rab Butler, messages from Dalton and Morrison urging him to take the job (Anderson had not been sufficiently “built up”) and that the Lords issue was not an issue. P266 An ad hoc bill could have been passed to allow Halifax to sit in the Commons. They met again at 4.30pm, this time with Margesson present. Chamberlain said he had to resign, although he still wanted to ask Labour if they would in principle serve under him, or else under another. Margesson urged the necessity of unity and that this was not possible under present PM. Halifax again demurred, Chamberlain reluctantly accepted, Churchill made protestations of humility but was less reluctant to accept. Then Churchill and Halifax had a cup of tea, then Attlee and Greenwood joined the four at 6.15pm. Halifax wrote that “they were a bit evasive” but thought it unlikely their party would agree to serve under Chamberlain. P267 Churchill’s account was written six years later, and is misdated to 11am on 10 May. He mentions a long pause. “It is inconceivable that the silence lasted for more than two minutes”. Lord Moran recorded that Bracken had learned on the evening of 9 May (Blake thinks this an error, clearly evening of 8 May) that Churchill was willing to serve under Halifax, and bracken went looking for him and persuaded him not to speak first. P268 There is no direct evidence that Churchill confirmed to Halifax that he might be willing to serve under him. Other accounts – Amery and Eden and Spears broadly corroborate this, but may derive from Bracken/Moran’s account. Eden recorded in his diary that Wood had lunch with him and Churchill on 9 May and urged Churchill to “make plain his willingness”; in his later memoirs Eden claimed that Wood had urged Churchill not to agree to serve under Halifax and not to say anything; Blake agrees with AJP Taylor that Eden may have confused the Bracken story and misattributed it Wood. On 10 May Germans attacked the West; Chamberlain tried to cling on (“it’s like trying to get a limpet off a corpse” – Bracken to Macmillan) until Wood told him not be so silly. Three meetings of the War Cabinet that day. At the third, at 4.30pm, confirmation came through that Labour would serve under Churchill or Halifax but not under him. P269 Amery latr wrte that Attlee dined with Bracken on 7 may and was persuaded to serve under Churchill, and bracken was able to use this to scotch the argument that Churchill would have difficulties with labour. Attlee had no recollection of this incident (says his biographer Kenneth Harris) and Blake thinks it unlikely he would have been dining with him during the Norway debate. Harris thought Attlee preferred Churchill. Dalton in his diary says that Attlee shared his preference for Halifax but thought either would be “tolerable”. The King saw Chamberlain after tea on 10 May to accept his resignation. The King urged Halifax as successor and that the peerage be placed “in abeyance” (King’s official biographer pointed out he meant not the technical legal meaning but an ad hoc bill for the duration of the war). Chamberlain advised him to send for Churchill. P270 King saw Churchill at 6pm and appointed him PM. He had become Prime Minister by default as Halifax could have had the job for the asking. 13 May Chamberlain got vociferous applause from Tories. Churchill got little applause from Tories and dead silence in the House of Lords. Simon LC, Hoare Amb to Madrid an important job, Duff Cooper Min of Information, Churchill himself Minister of Defence. Service Ministers kept out of War Cabinet and gradually dwindled to administrators, although they could still sometimes block Churchill. However, he generally decided war strategy. P271 Colville wrote “sent a cold chill down the spines of the staff at 10 Downing Street … our feelings were widely shared in the Cabinet Offices, the Treasury and throughout Whitehall … Seldom can a Prime Minister have taken office with the Establishment … so dubious of the choice and so prepared to find its doubts justified”. P272-3 Some, including JCC Davidson and Colville, thought that the Churchill gvt would not last, or even that Chamberlain might return. Chamberlain hoped to be Prime Minister again. He then fell ill and Churchill became leader on 9 October. Davidson wrote “the crooks are on top, as they were in the last war – we must keep our powder dry!” Halifax thought Churchill “an odd creature” and told Butler “the gangsters will shortly be in complete control”.
P366 Beaverbrook lobbied for Nye to be CIGS as it would look good politically to appoint a man who had risen from the ranks; Alan Brooke was appointed instead.
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MT post & 2 comments, note Campbell Iron Lady
type up CdeG notes, note CdeG
note Jenkins Churchill
note Life In the Jungle
Balfour & post education stuff, incl wealth
WSC Norway Debate, 9/5, May_1940_WCC (Ball, Gilbert, Charmley, Jenkins, Holy Fox, Stewart, Blake & Louis, McCarten, Prior, Kelly, Shakespeare, Owen)
Haig 1918 comment
Marsh on JC *1870, *1886
Methodist Schools,
HERBERT LAWRENCE, Colley, Edmonds
1922 Carlton Club vote
Eden (Charmley, Carlton 1931-57, Rhodes James 1956-7, Rothwell 1954-7, Dutton 1938-57, Thorpe 1897-1977, G Stewart)
Randolph Churchill - finish
Sir John French
Gaitskell on cars
Bonar Law (Blake, Adams)
Churchill & bombing
Halifax (Roberts)
HEATH (incl INK PROTEST)
Churchill & India 1930s & 1940s
Churchill later life
Asquith (Hazlehurst, Margot book, Sleepwalkers, Pistols At Dawn)
Lloyd George (Young Lloyd George, People’s Champion, From Peace to War, War Leader, Unknown Lloyd George)
Macmillan (incl RJ_FIX MACMILLAN MEMORIES INCL 1914 BALL (Fisher 8 “Serbia’s reply to the ultimatum. Archduke murdered”); 14 popular at Chatsworth)
Aneurin Bevan
Dalton (incl RJ FIX), Cripps
Montgomery (Hamilton, Carver)
Haig, Rawlinson, Plumer, Allenby, Townshend, Hamilton, Salisbury, Joffre, Franchet, Kitchener, Nivelle, Foch, Petain, World Crisis, Jutland, Admiral Fisher
GUT - David French SLGC, Woodward LGG, Philpott 1996, Dutton on Salonika, Gallipoli Politics, Ball Guardsmen, Lloyd Passch, Paul Ham Passch, Ufindell Joffre, Prisms of Appeasement, Beach on Intelligence
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CX869201, BDX19
Grigg 1912-16
P206 Robertson met Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the first time when he visited GHQ early in February 1915. Lloyd George was in France for discussions with French politicians to discuss a possible [Macedonian front|expedition to Salonika]] to help Serbia, and felt that he had established a good rapport with Robertson on strategy.
P314 “In their desire to be rid of one over-mighty subject (Kitchener) the politicians had created another”.
P357-8 Lloyd George hesitated before accepting the War Office – he would have been happy to back Law for the job because, as [Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook|Beaverbrook]] put it, he did not want the job to go to a “satellite of Asquith or a weak man agreeable to the soldiers”. He also contemplated resigning, possibly as Carson had over the general issue of war direction, or over the issue of giving soldiers the vote. Colleagues, including Carson, unanimously urged him to accept the job, although not all agreed with his wish that Robertson’s special powers be rescinded. Not just the Tory Morning Post but also the Liberal Daily Chronicle demanded that Robertson’s powers be retained intact. There was an exchange of letters, described by Grigg as “as much to save Lloyd George’s face as Robertson’s”. Lloyd George wrongly imagined that Robertson, who had recently written (2 May) to thank him for his role in enacting conscription, was a slow-thinking man whose trust he would win by speaking up for him at international conferences.
P390 Northcliffe threatened to “break” Lloyd George (11 October). There followed a letter from Gwynne and another from Robertson accusing him of undermining Robertson’s authority. Lloyd George replied “You must not ask me to play the part of a mere dummy – I am not in the least suited for the part”.
P381 visit to Foch (11 September), visited [Henry Hughes Wilson|Wilson]] (13 September). Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief, refused to see Lloyd George unless Haig was present. Robertson complained to Hankey (26 September) and the Morning Post (28 September) rebuked Lloyd George for what it called his “gaffe” – he had to write to the newspaper praising the Army. Others shared Lloyd George's concerns: Bertie, British Ambassador to France, wrote (5 October) “most sensible people admit that our failing is (in) competent leadership compared to the French” and remarked that the Morning Post was hostile to Lloyd George because of the Ulster Question. Grigg blames the soldiers’ reluctance to share information, and wrote that the soldiers’ “conception of “gentlemanliness implied a conspiracy against the public … he can be criticised for an error of judgement - which he was to repeat on a larger scale the following year (the Nivelle Affair) – but not for acting unpatriotically”.
P383-4 Grigg criticises Lloyd George for not visiting the front line trenches, largely out of squeamishness. At the time Northcliffe urged him to do so, although in the belief that it would serve to increase mutual confidence between Lloyd George and the Army leaders.
P392 Haig partly blamed Robertson for allowing the visit of Viscount French to France. However, Haig was publically deferential to Lloyd George, writing to thank him for his September visit despite his private anger at Lloyd George’s "ungentlemanly" consultation with Foch, and wrote to Derby (then Under-Secretary for War) urging him in the national interest to stop Robertson from quarrelling with Lloyd George.
P391 Derby told Lloyd George (9 November) he was advising Robertson to go to Russia providing Joffre also went.
P364-6 John Grigg describes Robertson as “an exceptional man by any reckoning” but as having less vision and imagination than either Kitchener or Lloyd George. Lloyd George described him as “sound but commonplace. He was cautious to the point of timidity” (an “essentially fair” verdict in Grigg’s view). Lloyd George also suggested, referring to his issuing of a memorandum on peace terms which he then cancelled, that Robertson would have been much more effective as a politician than as a soldier. In his memoirs Robertson criticised Lloyd George for having accomplished nothing at the War Office, and for having delegated most of his routine work so that he could - as Robertson saw it - meddle in strategy and engage in political intrigue – Grigg dismisses this as “surely bordering on absurd” as these were in fact the proper uses of his time, and also points out that Robertson neglects to mention the reform of military transportation (under Geddes) which Lloyd George promoted.
P431 Lansdowne was concerned (correctly) that by mid-1917 the Allies would be hit by shortages of shipping and a manpower shortage in agriculture. Robertson’s reply calling for “courage, action and determination” was written at Lloyd George’s request.
P432 Lloyd George later claimed that his “knockout blow” (speech was made to discourage premature peace initiative by Woodrow Wilson and to discourage defeatism in the UK. AJP Taylor (English History 1914-45 p62) claimed that he genuinely believed victory on the Somme to be imminent, but Grigg does not accept that Lloyd George believed this.
P461 Robertson may have backed Lloyd George's intrigues in Dec 1916 to get him out of the War Office.
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P65 Robertson later wrote: “If we won there we won everywhere, and if we failed there we lost everywhere” “Soldiers and Statesmen” Vol2 p294
Robertson wrote to Haig (8 March 1916 - he also sent an identical letter to Murray after a meeting of the War Committee that “fortunately purely military matters are not now interfered with” but that he was “very depressed” at ministers’ “inability to govern” (this was at a time when Asquith's Coalition was deeply divided over conscription), and that he was concerned that “practically anything may happen to our boasted British Constitution before this war ends, and that the great asset is the army – whose value will be fixed largely by the extent to which we at the top stick together & stand firm”. [1]
Woodward believes Robertson deferred to Haig, especially given Haig’s higher rank, but given Robertson’s forcefulness does not accept Lloyd George’s claim that he was “dominated” or “overawed” or even “terrified” by him. He argues that Robertson simply wanted to avoid a repetition of the events of 1915 when the clash between Kitchener and French had allowed civilian interference in strategy, and that this “misguided concept of military “loyalty” meant that he served, not as an honest broker between the government and GHQ, but as the representative of Haig’s point of view in London”. [2]
Haig sometimes referred to Robertson as “The Iron Ration”. “How much easier, though, it is to work with a gentleman” [3]
Spears, then a senior British liaison officer with the French, also wrote of Robertson’s volcanic temperament: “I frequently trembled lest the food were not of the proper English kind, the carriage not properly warmed, or the bottle of whisky not forthcoming … No, he was not always easy to deal with” Spears PTV p35
military principles from “facts” and “logical reasoning”, not “debate”. [4]
After visits to the front Robertson told Repington that Haig was “a shrewd Scot who would not do anything rash”. He later told the War Committee that “Haig had no idea of any attempt to break through the enemy lines” (30 May) and that he planned only to rescue the French. [5]
Maurice comments in June refer to the expectations that, if no breakthrough was achieved, the Somme offensive would be called off and a fresh offensive launched in Flanders. Robertson wrote to Haig (5 July) that although he was telling the Cabinet that Haig was “getting on very well” and that “it would be a slow business” he was unable to answer questions about Haig’s future plans as he himself had no knowledge of these. He also wrote (29 July) that some of the Cabinet were concerned at the high casualties, especially given that the objective of relieving Verdun now seemed to have been achieved. Robertson wrote to Haig (8 August) assuring him that he had wanted to keep Haig’s job secure by getting more information, and enclosing a letter of support from the War Committee, and telling Lord Esher that Haig “has done mighty well. I could not have done what he has. I knew he was the only man to command the Army. I might have had the command myself, but I knew he was the better man, and that my place is where I am now.” [6]
Robertson (letter to Haig -3 March) regretted even signing the agreement at Calais, although a refusal to do so might have been devastating for British civil-military relations or for Anglo-French relations. He later came to feel that Haig’s behaviour at Calais (less openly confrontational than his own) had allowed the civilians a chance to interfere in military affairs under the pretence of mediation. [7]
At the War Cabinet 1 May Smuts insisted on the need to keep up the offensive – not to do so would be “the beginning of the end”. “Hankey stressed the importance of Zeebrugge, which the British would either capture or else inflict attrition on the Germans if they stood and fought” (Hankey had earlier written Lloyd George a memo to this effect after a talk with Robertson on 18 April). [8]
war committee to “get at facts”. On 21 July Robertson wrote to Haig that unless his attack was “more or less a disastrous failure” then it would not be possible “to pronounce a verdict” for “several weeks” (as opposed to days. “France (22 July) to be handed a note from Kiggell, urging that the offensive continue to keep France from dropping out (even if Russia or Italy did). AND OPPOSING TRANSFER OF RESOURCES TO ITALY. Over “DH not pleased, play the man etc. [9]
In September meeting Robertson mentioned that with Russia, and to some extent France and Italy, down and out, Britain could not “singlehanded (sic) defeat the German Army”. [10]
He cautioned Haig (18 October)not to assume that German morale was collapsing. [11]
After Cambrai Robertson crossed the Channel, with a letter from Derby in his pocket, to demand staff changes. [12]
Robertson was willing to have Joffre command the Allied Reserve with himself as chief of Staff. [13]
“We discussed the whole question for hours. Haig put up no fight for Robertson.” Although he insisted that he was willing to work with the Versailles machinery, not that he thought it “workable”. Haig later wrote to his wife complaining that Robertson had not prevented the BEF having to take over line from the French, or diversion of resources to other fronts, although Robertson had in fact fought to resist this. [14] Robertson told Repington “he had found that he had many more friends than he knew, but fewer on whom he could count than he expected. Everybody had told him to stand firm, but few, except Gwynne and (Repington) had stood by him when he did so.”[15]
- Bond, Brian and Cave, Nigel (eds) Haig – A Reappraisal 70 Years On (David Woodward essay on Robertson). Pen & Sword. (2009 edition). ISBN 184415887
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Beckett & Corvi Haig’s Generals, Pen & Sword, London 2006 ISBN 184415892-6
ISBN
P164 first trench offensive at Neuve Chapelle, first major use of gas at Loos, as well as first use of tanks at Flers-Courcelette, only attempt to turn the German flank by amphibious assault (although the plan was never implemented). Known as Harry or Sennacherib. Army Feb 1884. Third Burma War ADC to Roberts through father’s influence. Returned to England 1889 to look after his elderly father. Married 1890. Coldstream Guards 1892. Staff College 1892-3, under influence of Henderson he visited the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War. 1895 he succeeded his father as Baronet, brigade major at Aldershot.
P164-6 1898 trip to Cairo for wife’s health coincided with final stage of Kitchener’s Nile Expedition, DAAG on his staff.
P165 6 Feb 1884 commissioned. March 1884 sailed to India to join 4th Battalion, KRRC. 28 Nov 1885 ADC to Lord Roberts. 6 Nov 1890 married Meredith Sophie Frances Kennard. 4 Nov 1891 captain. 20 July 1892 Coldstream Guards. 26 Feb 1895 baronet. 2 Jan 1898 DAAG in Sudan. 25 Jan 1899 Major 26 Jan 1899 brevet lt-col 16 Sep 1899 DAAG in South Africa. 12 March 1900 joined Roberts staff as DAQMG 6 may 1901 took command of mobile column. 26 June 1902 brevet colonel. 1 April 1903 AAG at War Office and substantive colonel. 5 dec 1903 commandant at staff college. 1 mar 1907 GOC 2nd brigade. 10 may 1909 major-general. 1 june 1910 GOC 3rd division. 31 may 1914 went on half pay. 5 August 1914 director of recruiting at war office. 21 sep 1914 temporary command of 4th division. 5 october 1914 GOC IV Corps and temporary lieutenant-general. 22 dec 1915 GOC First Army and temporary general. 1 Jan 1916 substantive lieutenant-general. 5 feb 1916 GOC Fourth Army. 1 jan 1917 substantive general. 10 may 1917 assumed command of planned Flanders amphibious invasion. 9 Nov 1917 GOC Second Army as Plumer sent to take command of British troops sent to Italy after Caporetto. 20 dec 1917 Second Army redesignated Fourth Army. 17 Feb 1918 PMR on Supreme War Council. 28 March 1918 GOC Fifth Army. 2 April 1918 Fifth Army redesignated Fourth Army. 4 August 1919 GOC North Russia. 15 Nov 1919 GOC Aldershot. 21 Nov 1920 appointed CinC India. Buried Trent Dorset 30 April 1925. CB 1900, KCB 1915.
P166 through the patronage of Ian Hamilton was appointed DAAG on staff of Maj-Gen Sir Penn Symons, although he had assumed he was to be joining the staff of Lt-Gen Sir George White. Another officer joined Symons’s staff in his place, and Rawlinson found himself trapped with White in Ladysmith. After relief of Ladysmith Rawlinson joined Roberts’ staff. He briefly returned to England with Roberts in December 1900 but then returned to work with Kitchener. In May 1901 he was given command of a mobile column, and later calculated that he had covered 5,211 miles, with his men killing 54 Boers and capturing 1,376 (and 3 guns), whilst suffering only 12 dead and 42 wounded. Rawlinson then worked at the War Office with his friend Henry Wilson, whom he had met in Burma and whom he had introduced to the Roberts circle, on the “Manual of Combined Training”. Whilst commandant he reformed the syllabus to give more emphasis to possible operations on the Franco-Belgian border and the North-West frontier, and the problems of amphibious operations. He supported Wilson to succeed him as commandant. In March 1914 he unequivocally backed the stance of Hubert Gough during the Curragh Incident, with he and Wilson having earlier sounded out Gough’s brother Johnny as to whether he would support the Ulster rebels. Temp GOC 4th Division on the Aisne after Snow wounded. Then IV Corps which consisted of Capper’s 7th Division and Byng’s 3rd Cavalry Division. (“Race to the Sea”)
P167 too late to save Antwerp, IV Corps retreated, becoming the first British formation to enter Ypres. Sir John French, who had already been critical of Rawlinson during his semi-independent command at Antwerp (Rawlinson had initially reported directly to London rather than to BEF GHQ), was highly critical of Rawlinson’s caution in attacking Menin (18 October), and at Rawlinson’s pessimistic demand that 8th Division be sent out to IV Corps. Rawlinson was effectively sent home to supervise the training and transfer to France of 8th Division. Returned to IV Corps, now consisting of 7th and 8th Divisions. The growing BEF was now dividing into Armies; IV Corps was part of Haig’s First Army, but Rawlinson was passed over for command of the new Third Army (the position went to Allenby). When Haig was promoted to Commander-in-Chief BEF, temporary GOC First Army as Monro was at Gallipoli. Relations between Haig and Rawlinson cooled during the Somme. Rawlinson had assumed he would be given command of the 1917 Flanders Offensive, but in May 1917 he was effectively sidelined to command of the planned amphibious operation, eventually cancelled 14 October as too late in the year for weather and tides to be propitious. Took command of Second Army for final few weeks of Passchendaele when Plumer sent to Italy. Second Army renamed Fourth. As PMR Rawlinson supported Haig over. Wilson found it useful to replace Rawlinson by Sackville-West. Given £30,000. Expected Fourth Army to be part of Army of Occupation in Germany, but this did not happen.
P168 Nov 1919 Aldershot command, and had already expressed an interest in Indian Command in November 1918, and had turned down Middle East Command in 1918. He got India in November 1920 at behest of Wilson (CIGS) and Churchill (Secretary of State for War). Rawlinson was appointed in part because of the Amritsar Massacre: in theory the job should have gone to an Indian Army officer on the retirement of Monro, Birdwood being the obvious choice, but Churchill agreed to the recall of Brigadier-General Dyer on condition the job went to Rawlinson rather than Birdwood. As CiC India Rawlinson advanced the “Indianisation” of the officer corps at a time of Waziristan, Malabar and Iraq (LINK), the pacification of which fell within his remit. His “forward policy” in Waziristan and administrative reforms aroused opposition, the latter from Birdwood. Having turned down the offer to succeed Cavan as CIGS in 1924 as he wanted to see his changes through, Rawlinson was then angered to see that his successor as CinC India was to be Birdwood, with a promotion to Field Marshal. However he learned in March 1925 that he was to be appointed CIGS after all. Later in March he was taken ill with suspected appendicitis, surgery was delayed because of his general fitness, played polo on 61st birthday and cricket subsequently. Surgery on 24 March revealed a strangulated intestine. Died suddenly and unexpectedly on 28 March 1925. P&W (p5) argue that Rawlinson is “of no great personal interest”, but Beckett rejects this, he was “lucky” not least with his father’s connections, although during the South African War he wrote that he had “deserved” his luck. Haig wrote in October 1914 that “may have many faults as an officer … his bright joviality is of great value … on active service”. Spears also noted that Rawlinson “had a way of floating over and away from his troubles.”
P168-9 sketches of the Sudan Campaign appeared in the “Illustrated London News”.
P169 he was able to “sleep like a top” at the height of the Somme battle. He was known as “The Cad” and “The Fox”. Charteris and Edmonds both thought him slippery and untrustworthy, whilst Hubert Gough thought him “crooked”. Farrar-Hockley (1966) p66 wrote that Rawlinson was “an expert at laying bets on and off any project for which he was responsible”. Haig wrote in his diary over the Joey Davies affair (April 1915) that Rawlinson’s subordinates did not trust him not to “throw them over” or to keep to verbal orders which he had given. Haig also wrote In February 1918 that Rawlinson at Versailles would be loyal to him “as long as (his) star was in the ascendant”. He was involved in intrigue over the Curragh Incident and the blackening of Sir John French’s name after Loos, making use of his friendship with the King’s adviser Wigram. On occasions he was warned against overt politicking by Wigram and Robertson.
P169-70 After Neuve Chapelle Rawlinson asked Haig to remove Joey Davies from command for failing to advance sufficiently after the capture of the village. After Davies had pointed out the realities on the ground Rawlinson passed on his letter to Haig and accepted responsibility. Haig thought Rawlinson “unsatisfactory” in his “loyalty to subordinates” but saved him from sacking by Sir John French.
P170 He was critical of Capper placing his trenches on forward slopes at First Ypres, but did nothing to stop it. At Neuve Chapelle Haig was critical of Rawlinson’s refusal to take advice from Capper. In April 1916, during Somme planning, Rawlinson took 2 divisions away from Walter Congreve’s VIII Corps as he thought him “not dashing enough” and increased the role of Horne’s XV Corps (Congreve was unsurprised as he thought Haig and Rawlinson favoured those who had served in First Army, although Haig reassured Congreve that “it had never entered his head to consider (him) lacking in dash”). Rawlinson wrote that in May the corps commanders accepted his plans with “little or no cavilling or argument” and in June “few questions were asked”. In October Rawlinson did listen to the entreaties of Lord Cavan (XIV Corps) to call off the attack on the Transloy Ridges, but this was overruled by Haig after consultation with the French (???? is this true check). Gough, who was a much more prescriptive leader, was later critical that Rawlinson had “let most valuable opportunities slip” at the Somme by running his command according to “prudent general principles” and “platitudes rather than realities”.
P170-1 mid-July to mid-September was a period of drift and piecemeal attacks. On 24 August Haig sent Rawlinson what Robin Prior called a “boy’s own guide” urging Rawlinson to supervise his subordinates more closely.
P171-2 Haig recommended Rawlinson to succeed him as GOC First Army as although “not a sincere man, he has brains and experience”. Lloyd George suggested to C.P.Scott that every time Rawlinson failed he was promoted. In April 1916 Rawlinson and Monro were rebuked by Haig for sending incorrect information to Kitchener about the number of men deployed on lines of communication. It has been suggested that Rawlinson was beholden to Haig for saving his career in the Joey Davies affair, and was privately unhappy with Haig’s objectives at the Somme. However, Rawlinson’s diaries do not suggest that he lived in fear of Haig, for example (7 November) writing that it was his duty to advise Haig that the Somme needed to be called off to conserve strength for 1917. However, Beckett agrees with Prior’s assessment that Rawlinson’s resistance to Haig was “only ever taken so far”. By 1918 Rawlinson’s role, like that of Haig, had become more that of a facilitator and manager as the BEF had become a more seasoned force at all levels. In April 1918 Rawlinson delegated one corps commander to coordinate defensive efforts across the whole Fourth Army front, whilst in July he was more willing to listen to the advice of Monash (and Blamey) over Hamel and, in August, Currie over Amiens. On 31 August he backed the 5th Australian Brigade’s attack at St Quentin although he privately thought it “spoiled a bloody good battle” already being planned.
P172 At Neuve Chapelle Rawlinson got his way in demanding a bombardment of 35 minutes, but for a time ignored Haig’s request that he set deeper objectives including the capture of Aubers Ridge. In the planning of Givenchy (June 1915) he did not convey his misgivings to Haig. In planning Loos (September 1915) he swallowed his misgivings that the objectives demanded by Haig were too wide. During the initial planning, early in 1917, of what became Third Ypres, Rawlinson insisted that the high ground of Gheluveld Plateau be cleared as a priority, and found himself sidelined with the offensive being put under the control of the “thruster” Gough. Rawlinson spoke French well. In 1918 he did not get on well with Eugene Debeny (French First Army), who had to be ordered by Foch (April 1918) to cooperate more with Rawlinson, although difficulties continued as late as November. He also clashed with Pershing over the use of US XXXIII Corps at Hamel. At Currie’s request Rawlinson called off a further attack on 14-15 August 1918; the Official History claimed, incorrectly, that Rawlinson himself defied Foch in doing so, but in fact it was Haig, on Rawlinson’s behalf, who told Foch that his ultimate responsibility was to the British Government.
P173 Haig noted of Rawlinson’s improvised staff in October 1914 that it contained only two regular officers – it included Rawlinson’s brother Toby, Leo Amery, the Duke of Westminster and other officers “connected to horses or polo”. From August 1915 Rawlinson’s principal advisers were Archibald Montgomery (chief of staff), Charles Budworth (artillery) and Russell Luckock (GSO1). In the Sudan Rawlinson found Kitchener’s grasp of staff work “very sketchy”. At Staff College Rawlinson attempted to increase links between branches and between Army and Navy. He was impressed by Boer artillery and his analysis of the Russo-Japanese War suggested that infantry, although still the dominant force on the battlefield, needed to cooperate with artillery to win. However, Rawlinson was not consistent in his innovations. At Neuve Chapelle he used air reconnaissance, preregistering of targets and allocation of guns to wirecutting.
P174 Rawlinson was also in the forefront of the development of trench mortars. He realised that the range of guns was crucial to making a successful “bite”. At Neuve Chapelle he felt that Haig had “looked for too much”, writing to Kitchener that the British should simply have been content to seize the village, which would only have cost 2,300 men and killed twice that many Germans. He wrote to the King’s adviser Wigram (25 March 1915) outlining his proposed “bite and hold” tactics, although he also wrote to Henry Sclater that fresh reserves should in future be kept ready to exploit any future breakthrough. However, Rawlinson appears to have given little attention to infantry tactics. At Aubers Ridge he appears to have assumed that there would be sufficient guns. However, he did appreciate that insufficient artillery was available at Givenchy, and at Loos it was hoped that gas would make up for lack of artillery. The short, sharp bombardment at Neuve Chapelle delivered 288lb of HE per yard of German trench, whereas a larger bombardment at Loos delivered 43lb per yard over 48 hours, and at the Somme 150lb over seven days.
P175 Robertson supported and encouraged Rawlinson in his promotion of “bite and hold”. At Third Ypres he warned “the rule is that they must not go beyond the range of their guns or they will be driven back by counter attacks”. He insisted the Australians employ tanks at Hamel, and in July adopted a French method of attacking in depth and moving the whole force forward at once, lest the attackers outrun their own reserves. He tried to demonstrate to Haig the importance of infantry cooperation with tanks. In the Somme planning he hoped to restrict the advance to the range of available artillery, and to seize points of tactical importance “which will provide us with good observation and which we may feel quite certain the Germans will counter attack”. He assumed the available artillery would allow an attack over a width of 22,000 yards and to a depth of 4,000-5,000 yards, although he believed that inexperienced troops would not get far beyond 3,000 yards. He also suggested covering the infantry advance with smoke to cover the problem of Germans surviving in deep dugouts. P176 Rawlinson rejected a suggestion by Brigadier-General James Jardine of 97 Brigade, who had been an observer in the Russo-Japanese War, that the infantry should hug the bombardment. Rawlinson told his corps commanders that “nothing could exist at the conclusion of the bombardment” and the infantry “would only have to walk over to take possession”.
P177 However, the artillery plan relied on calculations per yard of front, ignoring the fact that the German defences were much deeper than at Neuve Chapelle, and despite Rawlinson having flagged the importance of counterbattery work after Loos there was insufficient artillery to give this enough priority. He wrote “I dare say I shall have a tussle with (Haig) over the limited objective for I hear he is inclined to favour the unlimited with a chance of breaking the German line”. Haig demanded a shorter initial bombardment and a deeper initial advance, with the hope of quickly breaking the German second line before turning south to link up with the French. Later, as commitments at Verdun reduced the likely French commitment to the Somme, Haig’s plans became more ambitious, hoping to overwhelm ALL THREE German lines quickly. Rawlinson put up a new plan, described by Robin Prior as “a melange of capitulation and resistance”, retaining a longer bombardment but accepting a planned initial advance of 4,000-5,000 yards; however he did not state that his artillery was insufficient to obtain these objectives. He wrote “the attack is to go for the big thing. I still think we would do better to proceed by shorter steps, but I have told D.H. I will carry out his plan with as much enthusiasm as if it were my own”. Rawlinson was privately sceptical, writing to Wigram (26 June) “I shall be agreeably surprised if we succeed in breaking through the line on the first day”. On 1 July he received over 160 telegrams from his corps commanders, and it was not until mid-afternoon that he became aware that disaster had befallen the northern sector of his front.
P178 On 1 July Rawlinson had no reserve available to exploit XIII Corps success in the southern (Montauban) sector: cavalry was not ordered to the south and the 9th Division, in reserve, was dispersed. Beckett suggests that this may have been because Rawlinson did not believe a breakthrough likely, or else he may not have believed the reports (received mid-afternoon on 1 July) of XIII Corps success. Rawlinson at this point was still inclined to increase the pressure at Thiepval in the centre (where the attack had been unsuccessful) rather than at Montauban as Haig wished. Rawlinson also pressed for the removal of Ivor Phillips, GOC 38th Division, after his failure to occupy Mametz Wood on 3 July, although he did not press for the removal of Horne, the corps commander, who was a favourite of Haig’s. Late on 1 July VIII and X Corps, the northern part of Rawlinson’s command, were placed under Gough’s Reserve Army. By this stage Gough favoured an attempt to push through the German second and third lines as fast as possible, whereas Haig had come to favour a more methodical approach. Rawlinson managed to persuade Haig of the potential of a night attack on 14 July, with a more concentrated bombardment (although in total only 2/3 of the number of guns used on 1 July). However, he held back the infantry reserve until it was too late – when it was eventually ordered forward the order was countermanded by Horne, GOC XV Corps, lest an open flank be left – and did not again attempt the concentration of artillery which had made the attack a success.
P178-9 For reasons which remain unclear Rawlinson then presided over a period (15 July – 14 September) of 41 small attacks in 62 days, in each of which on average only six and a half of his 84 battalions took part. Beckett suggests he may have become “thoroughly confused by Haig’s muddled and contradictory instructions”. Haig wanted Guillemont taken, and wrote Rawlinson the Boys Own Paper. Rawlinson was also dubious of Haig’s wish to experiment with French small group tactics.
P179 In a discussion with Major-General John du Cane of XV Corps (25 September) Rawlinson thought British infantry superior to the French, but French artillery superior, including control of artillery at division rather than corps level, and making better study of ground than the British. However, Rawlinson also told Lord Derby on 29 September that there was little to learn from French artillery and that they had copied the British creeping barrage. At Flers Courcelette Rawlinson’s wishes for a night attack and to send tanks in ahead of the infantry were overruled by Haig, although eventually as a compromise the tanks were sent 50 yards ahead, although Rawlinson’s decision to leave gaps in the creeping barrage through which the tanks could pass proved fatal to the infantry. At Morval (25 September) the tanks were held in reserve a continuous creeping barrage used. Yet further Fourth Army attacks on 7 and 12 October were poorly supported by artillery: Rawlinson was aware of the problem at a conference with his corps commanders on 13 October, and yet another such attack was launched on 18 October, and at Haig’s insistence there was another unsuccessful attack on 23 October. After Cavan objected to further attacks Rawlinson was able to persuade Haig to end attacks on Fourth Army front on 7 November.
P179-80 Beckett is critical of Rawlinson for not standing up to Haig more often for his operational principles, which he attributes to Rawlinson’s ambition, and for, having given his subordinates a free hand, not backing them if their judgements proved wrong. However, Beckett argues that Rawlinson’s informal command style was better suited to the open warfare of the Hundred Days.
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Gary Mead 267-8 clearly political, helping to ensure commitment to western front rather than Salonika, final stages of the Somme all pointless and to Haig’s discredit Lots and lots of historians over the years have argued that the Somme should have been called off in October, even Philpott hums and haws about it, and rather more embarrassingly Kiggell seems to have agreed (see below). Not quite what Philpott would have you believe. Hart on Somme (2006) pp483-4 accepts that it was political, but that is obviously derived from other works Liddell Hart (1930s) mentions Foch and Joffre putting pressure on Haig to attack Transloy Ridges, just before Cavan’s mini-mutiny. Mentions Haig saying the Ancre was useful in strengthening his hand at the conference, although to be fair LH does not specifically say this was the reason for it. Travers “The Killing Ground” pp186-9 is interesting. He talks of 2.30pm 4 November meeting at which Haig agreed, at the request of Cavan (XIV Corps) to call off the attack on Transloy Ridges. Archie Montgomery (CGS Fourth Army) was cross, as was Foch, who was also present. Haig mollified Foch by promising that Gough would make a big attack on 15 November, in one big push if the weather allowed and a series of smaller attacks if wet (apart from Rawlinson papers at the time, footnotes refer to conversation of A.A. Montgomery with Liddell Hart in the 1930s). On 8 November Haig ordered Fourth Army to cease planning any more big offensives, and to conduct only minor offensives for ten days, but noted that “a success by the 15th would be very valuable as an argument at conference against transfer of troops to Salonika”. Claude Jacob (then GOC II Corps) also claimed that Haig wanted to be able to say at the conference that he was still fighting (mentioned in Wilson’s diary & papers, as are the various intrigues against Haig in London, also mentioned in Hankey Diary). Then there is Haig’s own diary of 12 November, as discussed. After the war (1938), Kiggell told Edmonds that “the later stages of the fight were hardly justified … Gough was so keen and confident the Commander-in-Chief decided to permit them”. W.B.Wood, one of the official historians, apropos Langemarck August 1917, wrote that he had “first become suspicious of Gough” when he heard that he had overruled Jacob to insist on an attack at Grandcourt in November 1916. Travers also mentions Kiggell’s lobbying of Edmonds to say that he had seen “a tactical opening” and the political repercussions had come to him “as an afterthought” (footnote refers to the Kiggell-Edmonds correspondence in 1938, and also to Gough’s “Fifth Army” (1931)). Travers argues that the “tactical opening” was a minor issue (he does not spell out his reasoning, although perhaps it’s because the only mention of it is in 1938 …) and that the attack was determined by personal and political considerations, although in Travers’ view whether Gough, Kiggell or Haig was the prime mover is hard to say. He also goes on to cite evidence of 19 Division, 2 Division and 32 Division commanders being cross at being made to attack in such poor conditions and Gough’s lack of understanding of conditions on the ground, which in Travers’ view is part of a symptomatic failing of the chain of command, top-down micro-management by Gough etc, which one can believe or not according to taste. Sheffield’s essay on Gough in Beckett & Corvi “Haig’s Generals” pp86-93: The Ancre was Gough’s “finest hour” but mainly because of the weeks of preparation – like most WW1 offensives it went a bit wrong after the initial “bite”. Discusses the political aspects. Haig told Gough on 2 Nov and again on 6 Nov that his attack was not to proceed unless the weather was dry enough. Says that “Haig sent Kiggell on 8 November to explain the political background of the attack”, and discusses Gough’s conference with his corps commanders on 10 November, at which Fanshawe and Congreve lobbied successfully for deeper objectives. Gough had further consultations with division and brigade commanders, not all of whom were keen. Haig sent Kiggell (12 Nov) to get Gough’s opinion as to whether the attack should proceed, a quote from Gough’s memoirs about the loneliness of command as “Kiggell elaborated the great issues at stake”. Then discussion of Haig’s visit later on 12 Nov, at which he gave the go-ahead. Sheffield argues that Haig thought a success would be “nice to have” and failure was best avoided, which he says “differs” from P&W’s interpretation that Gough was put under pressure to attack unless the weather made it impossible, although I have to say the difference does not seem to me to me very great. Mentions Simon Robbins’ argument that Haig went along with Gough’s attack which he launched over the protests of various corps and division commanders, citing postwar letters of a brigadier and a brigade major to Edmonds (based on the above, this seems to me to be a slight exaggeration). Discusses how Gough was not satisfied at V Corps failure to take Serre and how Haig from Paris tried to forbid further attacks but approved them retrospectively. Then some discussion about Gough’s micro-managing command style.
Goughie Hart-Davies, McGibbon (1975) ISBN 0 246 64059 6 French said (Autumn 1916) “there are half a dozen corporals in Chelsea barracks who could do as well as Robertson” p194
P192-3 has Gough keen to make “one final heave against a tottering enemy” in the brief interlude of dry (because cold) weather, not least because “the appalling prospect” was beginning to loom of another major offensive in 1917. Gough inspected various divisions and brigades, and conferring with his corps commanders (Congreve XIII, Fanshawe V, Jacob II, Byng Canadian), all of whom agreed that a freeze would permit an attack and “all hoped it was now or never”. “It was Gough’s decision”. Mentions Haig’s visit and contents of Haig’s diary (i.e Haig seems to have agreed with him for political reasons). It was a success, owing in part to artillery intensity (preliminary bombardment volume of shells exceeding that on the entire enemy line on 1 July), but still “an anti-climax. The weather had beaten them and the Germans remained undefeated in 1916”. Does not provide exact citations but the chapter account may be derived from the unpublished memoirs of Edward Beddington, a member of Gough’s staff, as well as the more obvious places like Gough’s “Fifth Army”.
P380-1 Haking 11 April 1918 War Cabinet meeting Lloyd George told his colleagues that he had just received a deputation from the Liberal War Committee demanding the removal of “incompetent” officers including Gough and Haking. Gough was sacked shortly afterwards, but Haking was not.
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In August 1914 Haig told Charteris, then a relatively junior officer on his staff, that French was “quite unfit for command in times of crisis”. Yet Haig rebuked Johnnie Gough for a mild criticism of his orders (22 February 1915).[16]
The French First and Second Armies were defeated by a German counterattack in Alsace-Lorraine (20 August). However, Joffre was encouraged by the German advance into Belgium and ordered an attack into the Ardennes by Third and Fourth Armies for 21 August.[17]
French was called “The Chief”.[18]
Clive was a liaison officer with Joffre’s GQG in August 1914.[19]
In the Boer War British forces had fired 273,000 shells in two and a half years, but between 15 August and 15 February 1915 they fired a million. The first 18-pounder HE shells were used at Ypres, and Kitchener had to reassure French that he was not withholding shells deliberately.[20]
At the time of First Ypres BEF 18-pounder guns were down to 320 rounds each, enough for four days’ fighting.[21]
By late November II and III Corps had only enough shells for a single day of fighting, and I Corps even less.[22]
The London Scottish was the first Territorial battalion in action at Messines late in 1914, and by mid-December the BEF had 22 Territorial and 6 Yeomanry battalions.[23]
In October and November the BEF lost 58,000 officers and men, with some battalions (1st Royal West Kents, 1st Coldstream Guards) having only three surviving officers after First Ypres. Since the outbreak of war the BEF had suffered 90,000 casualties, compared to an initial infantry strength (the first seven divisions) of 84,000. Of those who had landed in August, an average of one officer and thirty men per battalion remained.[24]
Kitchener met Joffre, Foch and Millerand at Dunkirk (1 November). Sir John was unable to get away during the Battle of Ypres. Kitchener promised to have a million British soldiers in France by early 1916, but despite French pleas warned that there would be no substantial British reinforcements before spring 1915. Kitchener offered to replace French with Ian Hamilton, but Joffre declined, saying this would be bad for BEF morale and he worked “well and cordially” with Sir John. Foch told Wilson of this (5 November). French send Captain Freddy Guest to complain to the Prime Minister, who refused to believe it, and both Asquith and Churchill wrote French reassuring letters. French went to see Foch (6 November) to thank him for his “comradeship and loyalty”.[25] This did not stop him writing to Kitchener (15 November) that “au fond, they are a low lot, and one always has to remember the class these French generals come from.[26] French talked of inciting H.A.Gwynne to start a press campaign against Kitchener.[27]
Joffre planned twin attacks against the German bulge from Artois and Champagne, the former offensive to be assisted by the BEF, and then a further thrust towards the Rhine from Verdun and Nancy.[28]
Neuve Chapelle, 7.30am on 10 March 276 field guns and howitzers and 66 heavy guns. 48 assaulting battalions at 8.05am. 1,200 yards penetration over a width of 4,000 yards. Called off 12 March. The official despatch spoke of “defeat of the enemy and the capture of his position”.[29]
Haig told Haldane (9 October) that French’s handling of the reserves had lost the battle. Kitchener demanded an explanation (11 October).[30]
Robertson visited London to assist the General Staff in early October, and whilst there discussed French’s replacement with Murray (now CIGS) and the King. After he returned to France and conferred with Haig, Haig recorded (diary 24 October) “I ha(ve) been more than loyal to French and did my best to stop all criticism of him or his methods … I ha(ve) come to the conclusion that it (i)s not fair to the Empire to retain French in command. Moreover, none of my officers commanding corps had a high opinion of Sir John’s military ability or military views; in fact “they had no confidence in him” (italics). Robertson quite agreed and left me saying “he knew how to act, and would report to Stamfordham””.[31]
Haig wrote to GHQ (21 October) that fresh forces could have pushed through with little opposition between 9am and 11am.[32]
To French’s annoyance the King arrived in France (21 October) to sample opinion for himself – French met him at Boulogne but was summoned to London for talks with Kitchener and the Dardanelles Committee. Gough and Haking visited the King after tea on (24 October) and told him “everyone has lost confidence in the C-in-C”. Over dinner that evening Haig told the King that “was a source of great weakness to the Army, and no one had any confidence in him any more”. The King was injured whilst thrown by one of Haig’s horses whilst inspecting RFC men (29 October). French arranged extra anti-aircraft guns and RFC patrols for the King’s chateau. French’s friends in London reported that Asquith still wanted French to remain in office but Bonar Law was opposed; Wilson claimed that “cordial relations with the French” were Sir John’s trump card and lobbied Carson in his favour. Walter Long reported that French’s dismissal had never been openly discussed by the War Council, but Charles Callwell recorded that Asquith, Grey and Lloyd George were overheard by the waiters discussing it in a railway restaurant car. French himself believed that Kitchener’s departure on a tour of the Mediterranean would save him.[33]
GHQ suggested that according to Haking’s own report the reserves had been held up by “avoidable delay” and pointed out the futility of “pushing reserves through a narrow gap”. Haig denied that there had been any “avoidable delay” and Haking now changed his mind and sent a new report (27 October) blaming the slowness of his troops’ march on their inexperience. French’s despatch was published (2 November) claiming that the reserves had been released at 9.30am (this is broadly corroborated by telephone log, Holmes p400). Haig, who wrote to his wife that the despatch was “full of lies”, demanded amendments and another interview between French and Haig ensued. Even though Charteris doubted that the quicker arrival of the reserves would have made much difference, the dispute revolved around the deployment and release of the reserves, rather than why Haig had demanded their release into a battle he thought already lost.[34]
French’s policies were attacked in the House of Lords (9 November) and again on 16 November when Lord St Davids complained of “the presence of ladies” at GHQ.[35]
Haig sent copies of the relevant orders and a critique of GHQ’s conduct of the battle to his wife, who showed them to Stamfordham (10 November) for the King to see. Robertson was working against French, telling Haig (15 November) that “the first thing is to get you in command”. Asquith discussed the matter with King and Kitchener (both of whom thought French not up to the job, although Kitchener thought the time not right for a change), and (23 November) Haig (cite Groot here) and then asked Esher to convey to French in person the news that he must resign, and be given a peerage and the newly-created job of Commander-in-Chief Home Forces. However, French insisted on seeing Asquith again (29 November) at which meeting Asquith told him that he must take the first step and was not being “recalled” (sacked). French’s official critique of Haig’s conduct of Loos finally reached the DMO at the War Office on 1 December. He wrote to Asquith (2 December) suggesting that Kitchener be removed and replaced by a civilian Secretary of State to avoid friction with the new job of Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, and that he would await Asquith’s decision on this point. He returned to France (3 December), but Asquith had been exchanging further letters with Stamfordham and they agreed that French must now be pressed to quit.[36]
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Terraine "To Win a War" Sidgwick & Jackson London ISBN 0304353213 p54 Hankey suggested that Robertson be Commander-in-Chief India, but Haig later advised that Monro was doing good work there and should be left to get on with it, Lloyd George proposed Robertson and Wilson should swap jobs leaving Robertson out of the loop, in Balfour interview (14 February) Robertson repeated that he objected to the new system itself but Robertson was willing to go to Versailles as Deputy CIGS, or else to remain as CIGS with full powers. Wilson (2 days before becoming CIGS) told Derby that Versailles "could not be Deputy to anyone" but later appointed Maj-Gen Sir Charles Sackville-West to the Versailles job after Rawlinson.
p47-50 the Cabinet Committee on manpower consisted of the Prime Minister, Curzon, Barnes (Labour Party), Carson and Smuts. The Army asked for 615,000 men (after 900,000 casualties in 1917). The Navy got 50,000 Category A men, the Army got 50,000 Category A and 100,000 lower grades. On 5 January 1918 the BEF numbered 1.949m, and there were 1.56m in the UK, many of them in hospital or training, and including 90,000 in Ireland of which 62,000 were infantry in a gendarme role. There were 600,000 trained Category A men in the UK, of which 500,000 were available for service in France. There were 900,000 British & Empire troops abroad, but many of these (e.g. Indians) were not available for service in France - in the event 100,000 were sent to France.
Lloyd George was tired and suggested sending men and guns to Italy at an Allied conference (6 Aug) which Foch (French chief of staff) called “a fiasco” because of his tired and peevish chairmanship - Henry Wilson recorded “Foch thinks Lloyd George is beaten” [37].Sir Robert Whigham (Deputy CIGS) warned Haig (9 August) that Lloyd George was openly saying he had known all along the offensive would fail, and was again urging sending guns to Italy, and warned Haig that Robertson was having a ”real bad time” from Lloyd George. Lloyd George was “unresponsive” when Hankey pressed him for action in Italy (15 Aug)[38].
The War Policy Committee in late July had only authorised the opening stage of the offensive but never made good on their promises to keep an eye on it and if necessary call it off and send guns to Italy instead. In fact the War Policy Committee did not meet again until three weeks into September, leaving it to the War Cabinet (in practice much the same men) who spent much of their time discussing German air raids[39]. Robertson reported to the War Cabinet on 31 July (on that occasion they were more interested in discussing the likelihood of Russia collapsing), 2 August, 17 August and 22 August – he told them of Gough’s limited progress on the right although he seems to have slightly exaggerated the likelihood of reaching Klerken Ridge[40]. On 11 August Maurice Hankey recorded his dismay in his diary that the War Cabinet had spent four hours composing a letter of rebuke to Arthur Henderson (the only Labour member of the War Cabinet) who had just resigned, instead of discussing whether attention should be switched from Flanders to Italy on account of the weather[41]. In this period, in which Gough’s attacks were floundering, the War Cabinet never discussed the actual course of the Flanders campaign, let alone calling it off[42].
Lloyd George – resting at the residence of Lord Riddell (owner of the “News of the World”) and sometimes out of telephone contact with London on account of thunder - finally sent a message to the War Cabinet (27 August) demanding the transfer of 300 guns to Italy, after the British Ambassador had reported on the Italian success at the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo[43]. Robertson, also absent, sent a message that Cadorna’s recent success, as well as Petain’s limited offensive at Verdun, was owed to British pressure in Flanders. Next day Robertson returned and demanded that the War Cabinet make its mind up. Lloyd George invited Robertson and Maurice down to Riddell’s residence, where – after Lloyd George had served Robertson’s favourite dish, apple pudding, at lunch[44] - they sent a telegram to the British Ambassador in Rome stressing the importance of the Flanders Campaign but offering to send guns to Italy provided the Italians could promise that they would help to win a great victory on the Isonzo – Robertson agreed to sign on the (correct) assumption that the Italians would make no such promise. Contrary to Lloyd George’s later claims, it was the military who had pressed the politicians to come to a decision[45]. Esher warned Haig (3 September) that Hankey was critical of Charteris’ intelligence, as those nearer the front were less optimistic, and suggested Haig promote Charteris to Major-General as “a smack in the eye” to his critics in London[46].
Haig was summoned to the War Cabinet (4 September), where he said that Britain must carry on attacking precisely because Russia was finished and France nearly so. Henry Wilson commented in his diary that Lloyd George was giving Haig enough rope to hang himself (Wolff 165-7), an opinion endorsed by John Keegan[47]. The latest Italian offensive on the Isonzo had stalled. Lloyd George had wanted to send 300 guns to help. Haig objected to Foch (French Chief of Staff) – a sceptic of the Flanders campaign (WALTER REID QUOTE FOOL DUCKS and BOCHE AND BOUE) - sending 100 guns from Anthoine’s First Army (which was taking part in Third Ypres) to Italy, but Foch (4 September) said that the political implications of helping the Italians were more important than a victory in Flanders. Lloyd George thought this was a good diplomatic move and urged Haig to send guns so they were not embarrassed by the French, so on 7 September 100 British guns were found[48][49], although the Eleventh Isonzo Offensive ended before they got there.
Robertson reported this success to the War Cabinet (21 September) – they weren’t interested but recorded Cadorna’s message that there would be no further Italian offensive that year, despite all Italian preparations having seemed in hand when Derby (Secretary for War) had visited Italy the previous week. The War Cabinet met again on 24 September to discuss another message from Cadorna, then that very afternoon the War Policy Committee was at last reconvened, this time to discuss possible British operations against Turkey. Lloyd George remarked that a victory against the Turks would impress British public opinion much more than Plumer’s small advances in Flanders[50].
The War Policy Committee reconvened on 3 October and discussed how German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian manpower was holding up but the Turks were weaker, and might be induced to accept terms after being defeated in Palestine. At that meeting Lloyd George complained that the French were not attacking, and that the British would be lucky to reach Passchendaele, and certainly not Klerken as Haig had originally promised. But they still didn’t demand a halt to Third Ypres, only insisting that the generals agree to winter operations in Palestine[51]. Robertson warned Haig (3 October) that the government had approved taking over a stretch of line from Petain (this had been decided on 25 Sep without consulting Haig, nor did Lloyd George or Robertson tell Haig when they visited GHQ on 26 Sep).
Wilson had originally been quite keen on Third Ypres – he received Haig’s warm thanks for supporting it at the start, in July had told Bonar Law that worry about casualties was a good reason for staying out of a war but a bad reason for not fighting once you were in one, and as late as 5 October had told Lloyd George that Third Ypres should be kept going until mid-November. But on 4 September he deplored Haig’s reluctance to send guns to Italy “especially as Haig is not going to do anything really serious at Ypres this year”, so it is possible he was ingratiating himself with the Prime Minister by criticising Haig even though they had few real differences in strategy[52].
The French were always demanding that the British take over extra line to free up French troops for harvest-gathering and operations in Syria (and, the British suspected, to grant more leave to French soldiers). The War Cabinet rejected this (24 October), missing a golden opportunity to demand a halt as Haig and Robertson had told them that it would mean calling off Third Ypres[53].
The War Policy Committee (5 October) may have discussed manpower as Robertson and Lloyd George argued over sending two divisions to Palestine (no minutes exist as Hankey was ill, but Henry Wilson’s diary tells a story of how Viscount French had heard that manpower had been discussed) [54]. The War Cabinet discussed the manpower situation on 11 October, and complained that they were not being given information. Figures were duly supplied by Frederick Maurice on 17 Oct and 1 Nov (estimates of German losses are now known to have been exaggerated). Contrary to Lloyd George’s later claims that the soldiers had kept the politicians in the dark, the War Cabinet had been given the figures as soon as they asked, and were worried not that they were too high but about using them to correct inflated public rumours, and rumours that “colonial” troops were bearing the disproportionate brunt of the fighting[55].
Derby warned the War Cabinet (6 December) that Haig was short of 100,000 men. Lloyd George pooh-poohed this (10 December), saying that the British public needed to be reassured that the Germans would still be in a minority in the west, and scoffed again when Derby (12 December) protested that, even if this was numerically true, the British forces were weakened and the Germans mostly relatively fresh.[56] Haig demanded 600,000 men for the Army but got only 100,000 as government needed men for shipping and agriculture. Lloyd George wrote to Esher (1 December) that Haig had “eaten his cake. Petain had economised his”.[57] Robertson warned (19 December) of imminent German attack, poor British defences and poor quality junior officers, weakness of the Belgians and Portuguese, and lack of room to retreat in Flanders. Lloyd George scoffed again and claimed the Germans were just making noises, thinking the military were trying to divert resources from his planned offensives against the Turks.[58]
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Robertson met with Haig (15 December) with a letter from Derby demanding staff changes. It is not known whether or not he had to use it. Charteris, Kiggell, R C Maxwell (QuarterMaster-General) (“not up to the job & is not helping us with manpower” in Robertson's description). G H Fowke (Adjutant-General) was on the list but survived. As far back as 17 August Robertson had urged Haig to comb out fit men from rear echelon jobs for the front line (41,000 were found) and stressed that every available man was being sent from the home service divisions. A new manpower committee was formed, with Hankey noting (8 December) that the economic crisis had now arrived and that the need was not just to find enough men to “smash the enemy” but that “the enemy may smash us”. Britain had “to avert a military catastrophe without plunging us into an economic catastrophe”.[59]
The Army Council requested 615,000 new recruits for the Army – after sending men to the Navy, shipbuilding, Air Force and agriculture the government allocated only 100,000 Category “A” (i.e. considered fit for combat) troops, later increased to 150,000 after protest. There were also 120,000 18 year old soldiers who would become eligible for service overseas when they turned 19. The Army was forced to cut divisions from 12 infantry battalions to 9 (each division also had a pioneer battalion), and cutting cavalry from 5 to 3 divisions. In the event only 372,000 Category “A” men were found between January and November 1918 when the government were doing all they could to reinforce the BEF.[60]
Haig, appearing before the War Cabinet (7 January) told Bonar Law that if he were a German commander he would not think the risk of major German Offensives justified. Tipped off by Robertson, he then sent a paper demanding more men, which Lloyd George flung contemptuously on the table. Lloyd George was convinced by the figures that the BEF had sufficient men.[61]
There were about 1.5 million troops in the UK, but many of these were too young (under 19), too old or medically unfit for combat. At the start of 1917 Viscount French had a defensive force of 470,000 men, of whom 232,459 (including ten infantry divisions) were “mobile” reserves and 237,894 on beach and anti-aircraft defence. By January 1918 the total had been reduced to 400,979, of whom 190,045 (8 divisions) were “mobile”. In January 1918 Robertson favoured breaking up 4 divisions to send 50,000 reinforcements to France, leaving the remaining 4 divisions consisting mainly of “lads” under 19. There were around 16,000 troops in Ireland.[62]
After the war Lloyd George claimed that he had personally ordered troops to France after 21 March and that Robertson had kept them in the UK. Colonel C. Allanson of the War Office later testified that, based on Haig’s prediction that he could contain any German attack for 18 days, the General Staff had kept mobile reserves in the UK to deceive German intelligence, to preserve national morale after the losses of Passchendaele, and to help the economy by spending money in the UK. Lloyd George had restricted the flow of men into the army in the first place, but Robertson never accused him of keeping men who were already in uniform in the UK. When the Germans attacked in March, the War Cabinet identified 88,000 men on leave in the UK, 18,000 new drafts up to April, and 106,000 “mobile” reserves in the UK (212,000 in total). By 5 May Haig had been sent 221,092 men including those returning from leave.[63]
In the winter of 1917-18 a negotiated peace no longer seemed impossible after the Lansdowne Letter and the Kuhlmann peace kite. Lloyd George’s Caxton Hall Speech (5 January 1918) said that he did not want to “destroy” the Central Powers and hinted that Germany might be able to keep some of her gains in the east in return for concessions to the western powers. Robertson favoured concessions to Turkey and Bulgaria (if it encouraged them to make peace) but not to Germany.[64]
Robertson, Lloyd George
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Despite Robertson's hopes that no one would take any notice of the PMRs, Milner wrote in December that Wilson was "as full of ideas as an egg is full of meat (sic). One may not always agree with him, but ... I get more help from him in considering any of our big war problems than from any other "expert" ". In mid-December Millerand, former French war minister, visited Esher to urge that, with German attacks probably likely in the spring, Joffre be appointed generalissimo, claiming that "the SWC was a fifth wheel to a coach". Debeney, Petain's Chief of Staff, approached Clive, British Chief of Mission at GQG, with a similar plan. On being told of this plan, Robertson said he would support it if it led to the disappearance of the Versailles machinery. One problem was that Lloyd George had explicitly told the House of Commons that he did not support the appointment of a Supreme Commander. Over Christmas Clemenceau proposed that the Allied generalissimo then have control only over the reserve, with Maurice suggesting that Robertson be Joffre's chief of staff. Wilson advised that a Generalissimo, let alone with a British chief of staff, was impossible, and that the reserve should be controlled by Versailles.[65]
Lloyd George may have planned to appoint Robertson Commander-in-Chief India, but this was stymied by Lovat Fraser’s article in Northcliffe’s “Daily Mail” (21 January) attacking “the ridiculous “theory of attrition”” and “strategy of the stone age” in the west whilst the east was run “from the point of view of a sergeant-major”. The next day Lloyd George told Stamfordham that Robertson was “no strategist & had no experience of fighting, never commanded a battalion … yet comes to the War Cabinet with all the airs of a great general” and was “almost always wrong in his forecasts”. Stamfordham recognised that the article had made it impossible for Lloyd George to make changes in the high command. Bonar Law, under pressure from the (backbench) Unionist War Committee, condemned the attacks. Robertson assumed Lloyd George had instigated the article, which he thought “vile and unmanly” behaviour. Maurice thought that relations between the Prime Minister and the CIGS had reached the point where one of them would have to go.[66]
At the Supreme War Council (30 January-1 February) Foch (who was himself French Chief of Staff) suggested that the Allied Reserve be controlled by the national Chiefs of Staff (this was also Robertson’s view), Lloyd George, possibly prompted by the notes Wilson was passing him across the table, claimed that Robertson would be too busy with his current job. Wilson then suggested to Lloyd George that the PMRs should control the Reserve. Robertson demanded to be on the Board, which would control reserves for the Western, Italian and Balkan Fronts, claiming that the British Army could only legally receive orders from a member of the Army Council. After this was rejected, Robertson sat motionless after the meeting, glaring into space.[67]
Derby, prompted by Robertson, mentioned that “the Country” would not accept the British reserves being handled by a French general. Repington (“Morning Post” 11 February) wrote that the decision finally proved Lloyd George’s “incapacity” as Prime Minister. Yet Haig was, in Esher’s description, “perfectly placid” about accepting the Versailles machinery, even though he did not agree with it. He may have felt that he and Petain could kill the proposal by not releasing reserves, and wrote to his wife that Robertson had not done enough to prevent the transfer of divisions to other fronts.[68]
Derby summoned Haig to London (9 February). Lloyd George now suggested (9 February, misdated 14 February in Milner papers) that Robertson and Wilson swap jobs, so that Robertson would be in the wrong if he refused and out of the loop if he accepted. Derby and Haig were willing to accept this, although Haig thought the Army would be “very shocked” if Wilson became CIGS. But Robertson (returning from Eastbourne where he had been recovering from bronchitis) refused. Derby vacillated, although Haig told Robertson that it was his “duty” to take the Versailles job if the government wished. With the press discussing the matter, Milner urged Lloyd George that they were on strong ground to force a decision and get rid of Robertson, whom he called our “Old Man of the Sea”.[69]
In a House of Commons made angry by the recent press activity, after Lloyd George had cited state secrecy as his reason for refusing to discuss the SWC machinery, Asquith (12 February) was greeted with cheers for two minutes. Lloyd George ended by challenging the House of Commons to bring down the government.[70]
In the War Cabinet, Curzon threatened to resign if Robertson were removed, Milner and Barnes (Labour) if he stayed. Derby suggested that Wilson be Deputy CIGS, which Lloyd George and Milner rejected. Robertson was brought before the War Cabinet (14 February) and said the real issue was whether the War Cabinet wished to keep him as their main strategic adviser. He agreed that the proposal for Wilson to be Deputy CIGS solved the legal question. Lloyd George asked him if he was willing to take that job himself with Wilson as CIGS in London, and thinking aloud, lost the sympathy of the meeting by mentioning that Wilson was only a temporary, not permanent, general. They offered him another chance to go to Versailles as Deputy CIGS or remain CIGS but without the powers he had been granted in December 1915.[71]
Milner, Balfour and Bonar Law agreed that they had to support the Prime Minister. Lloyd George told Stamfordham that the government would quit rather than accept “military dictation”. Robertson again (16 February) refused to accept the government’s terms. Robertson warned Haig that Lloyd George would argue in Parliament that Haig had no objections to the Versailles machinery. Haig talked to Lloyd George for hours (17 February) but “put up no fight for Robertson” although he did insist that Lloyd George say only that he would “work under” the Versailles machinery, not that it was “workable”. On 18 February it was announced that Robertson had “resigned” as CIGS and accepted Eastern Command.[72]
Allenby, Amery, Foch, Haig, Joffre, Robertson, Wilson
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Robertson wrote notes thanking Maurice, Macdonogh and Whigham, ending “now get on with the war” [73]
On 21 March Wilson advised that the attack “might only develop into a big raid or demonstration” and focussed the War Cabinet on the German threat to Asia. [74]
In one day (21 March) the Germans captured as much territory as the British had captured in 140 days at the Somme in 1916. On 23 March Kirke, Deputy Director of Operations at GHQ, flew to London to report 12 miles and 600 guns lost. Wilson reported (27 March) that Gough’s Fifth Army could “no longer be regarded as a fighting unit”. Milner bluntly informed Lloyd George (28 March) that there was no longer any choice but to send reinforcements to France. [75]
The press (8-9 April) blamed Lloyd George for starving the army of men, with the Morning Post and Daily News mentioning that it happened just after Robertson’s removal whilst the Star called for Robertson to be appointed Secretary of State for War. In the House of Commons in early April Lloyd George claimed, amidst press demands for Robertson’s restoration to office, that Wilson had predicted exactly when and where the German offensive would come – this was a dubious claim, as were his infamous claims in the same speech that Allenby had only three “white” divisions in the Middle East (false) and that BEF strength was greater then than a year earlier (true, but it later emerged that Haig had fewer infantry, manning a longer stretch of front). [76]
Press attacks continued, with the Star blaming the Versailles machinery for causing a depleted Fifth Army to take over more front, while the Globe and Morning Post called for Robertson’s restoration as CIGS. Lloyd George was amenable to Haig’s suggestion that Robertson be appointed Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the BEF, but Robertson wrote to Haig (19 April) “my job is CIGS or nothing”. Repington in the Morning Post (20&22 April) called this suggestion “a pretext for getting him out of the way of the imbeciles” in London and called for Lloyd George’s removal as Prime Minister.[77]
When new War Office figures emerged in late April, showing that the Allies had in fact been inferior to the Germans in rifle strength (although superior in ration strength, when air, tank and gun crews and logistics personnel were included), Lloyd George ordered an investigation, suspecting a military conspiracy to discredit him. The Maurice letter, a blatant breach of King’s regulations, appeared in several newspapers on 7 May. Maurice denied that it was a military conspiracy to overthrow a civilian government, and claimed “it ha(d) been seen by no soldier” but he had in fact confided in Robertson, who praised and encouraged him. Lloyd George later claimed in his memoirs that Robertson had been aiming to topple the government and become a military dictator like Hindenburg, but although journalists like Gwynne and Maxse sometimes dropped such hints there is no evidence that this was Robertson’s intention. Robertson thought Lloyd George would survive the crisis, although he may have hoped to be restored as CIGS.[78]
Hankey recorded (8 May) rumours, seemingly being repeated by Lloyd George, that Robertson was plotting with Asquith, Trenchard (recently resigned as Chief of Air Staff), Repington, Gwynne, Maurice and Jellicoe (recently sacked as First Sea Lord), although the rumours also said that Robertson refused to openly associate with the Maurice Letter. Lloyd George survived the debate (9 May) by quoting from the Director of Military Operations’ figures showing an increase in British fighting strength, but keeping quiet about the Adjutant-General’s figures which said the opposite. [79]
Robertson later argued that Allied reinforcements had been the key factor in the 1918 victories. Possibly, but Allenby’s victories over the Turks had also been a key factor. He had the 54th division, which after much agonising the War Cabinet had left with him in July 1918 with the outcome of the war on the Western front still uncertain. Stronger commitment to the Palestine front in the winter of 1917-18 would not necessarily have led to great results, as that winter saw some of the heaviest rain in living memory. The War Cabinet had not been entirely correct that the western front was secure.[80]
- Jeffery, Keith (2006). Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820358-2.
- David R Woodward, "Field Marshal Sir William Robertson", Westport Connecticut & London: Praeger, 1998, ISBN 0-275-95422-6
Lloyd George, Maurice, Kirke, Haig
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The Munitions of War Act 1915 established compulsory arbitration and drew unions into formal consultation with employers and government, but made strikes effectively illegal. Radical shop stewards, left out of the process, led strikes on “Red Clydeside” and in South Wales. Food rationing began in 1917, licensing laws at the end of August 1914, and British Summer Time in 1916.[81]
Anglo-French cooperation began with Kitchener’s visit to Paris in September 1914 and Millerand (French War Minister)’s visit to Britain in January 1915. The first formal Anglo-French conference was at Calais in July 1915. In November 1915 a “Standing Committee of an advisory character” (prime ministers and such other politicians and generals as were required, with Hankey and a French counterpart taking minutes) was set up, but Briand rejected Asquith’s proposal of a permanent secretariat. The Chantilly Conference (6-8 December 1915) consisted of Murray (CIGS), French (one of his last public duties before being relieved as C-in-C BEF), Robertson (Chief of Staff BEF) and Wilson (Anglo-French liaison) with Joffre, Maurice Pellé and Victor Huguet for France, Zhilinski and Ignatieff for Russia, Cadorna for Italy and a Serb and Belgian representative. Wilson disapproved of large meetings - a view he shared with Joffre – and thought the British and French War Ministers, C-in-Cs and foreign ministers (6 men in total) should meet regularly which might discourage ventures like Antwerp, Gallipoli and Salonika. During the Chantilly Conference Wilson passed a note to a colleague describing it as “a mass meeting between two vomits”.[82]
Wilson thought at the end of 1916 that both sides were claiming victory from that year’s fighting, but victory “inclined to us”, and that Germany might be driven to sue for peace in 1917.[83]
In January 1917 Wilson accompanied Lloyd George to a conference at Rome (Lloyd George had rejected Robertson’s suggestion that he take Haig). Despite the growing alliance between Wilson and the Prime Minister, Wilson was a “Westerner” and agreed with Robertson that British heavy guns should not be sent to Italy or Salonika.[84]
Lloyd George wanted Russia persuaded to make the maximum possible effort, a necessity again stressed at the second Chantilly Conference in December 1916. In September 1916 he had proposed sending Robertson, who amidst worries that Lloyd George wanted him out of the country to gain control over strategy, rejected the idea as “the Kitchener dodge” in November, despite Lloyd George offering to go on the mission himself. In the event departure, originally scheduled for November, was delayed. The party of 50 included British delegates (led by Milner and including a banker and two munitions experts), French (led by de Castelnau) and Italian delegations. The War Office briefing advised that Russia was close to revolution. Wilson thought “the Czar … as devoid of character & purpose as our own poor miserable King”. The object of the mission was to keep the Russians holding down at least the forces now opposite them, to boost Russian morale and see what equipment they needed with a view to coordinating attacks. Even senior Russian officials were talking openly of assassinating the Tsar or perhaps just the Tsarina. Wilson was impressed by Generals Ruzski and Danilov, although he may have been influenced too much by the views of Knox, who had been British military attaché since 1911. He thought that even if Tsar and Tsarina were assassinated Russia would not make a separate peace. His official report (3 March) said that Russia would remain in the war and that they would solve their “administrative chaos”. The young Archibald Wavell in the Caucasus thought much the same thing at the time.[85]
Wilson confessed to Derby that he did not get on with Haig or Robertson and told Robertson he wanted to return to commanding a corps. Hankey brokered an agreement whereby Haig would be subordinate to Nivelle only for the duration of the coming offensive and Wilson would do the liaison job but reporting to Haig. Haig asked him to accept “as a favour”, but Robertson was “staggered” by Wilson demanding and getting a formal invitation from Haig, Nivelle and the War Cabinet, and a clear statement of his own and Haig’s status. Nivelle came to Wilson’s London house to beg him to accept (he thought Haig “a man of indifferent brain, of narrow vision, of suspicious mind and very difficult to get on with” and said Lloyd George wanted to get rid of him).[86]
Nivelle liaised constantly with Wilson but Robertson came out to Beauvais in March to demand that Wilson keep him fully informed of all developments. The Nivelle Offensive was partly scuppered by the Russian Revolution which ruled out coordinated offensives.[87]
The new French War Minister Painleve had a low opinion of Nivelle’s plan to achieve a decisive “rupture”, and after it failed he clearly wanted to sack Nivelle (contrary to Wilson's advice on 26 April) and replace him with Petain, who favoured abstaining from major offensives until the Americans were present in strength. Wilson did not agree with this, although the alternatives were whirlwind attacks like those Nivelle had launched at Verdun in late 1916 or – Wilson’s preference – a major attritional offensive like the Somme but “with intelligence”. Wilson was pleased with the promotion of his friend Foch to be French Chief of Staff but not the promotion of Petain as French Commander-in-Chief (10 May) – Wilson was seen as pro-Nivelle and Petain soon began to deal directly with Haig, leaving little justification for Wilson’s job.[88]
Robertson suggested once again that Wilson should return to commanding a corps, but Foch thought this a poor use of his talents. Haig’s diary states that Painleve had told Lloyd George Wilson was no longer persona grata with the French government. Wilson returned to London to sound out opinion about resigning and nobody tried to dissuade him. Smuts thought Robertson “good but much too narrow & nor adaptable enough”. Whilst he was in London Wilson recommended that Britain try for some military or diplomatic success to drive Turkey or Bulgaria out of the war. Lloyd George asked him to brief the War Cabinet individually then collectively with this advice. On return to France Wilson declined Haig’s offer to command XIII Corps. Wilson then took a tour of the French line all the way down to the Swiss frontier, and was concerned that revolution seemed a possibility in France. He attempted to get a final interview with Painleve but left after being kept waiting in a lobby with "a pronounced whore". He had a meeting with Haig, who was encouraged by the recent success at Messines, and agreed with Haig’s plan for a major offensive in Flanders, although he cautioned that it should only continue up until the time of the mud.[89]
Wilson contemplated standing for Parliament. In 1916 the Conservative Party chairman Arthur Steel-Maitland had offered to get him a seat. Esher and Duncannon proposed forming a new “National” party of 20-30 MPs, which would include David Davies who had been on the mission to Russia. The new party’s policies would include more vigorous prosecution of the war – Wilson urged Irish conscription – and the detachment of Turkey and Bulgaria. Wilson was worried that it would be the end of his army career (he was also short of money - he had a private income of £300 a year, and half pay of £600 (£450 after tax) – but his house at Eaton Square was costing him £1,500 a year). His brother Jemmy proposed getting him an Ulster seat, and thought that the prospect of Wilson as an MP would annoy Robertson (who told Wilson that there was no army job for him in Britain), but the Irish Unionist leader Carson thought an English seat more sensible. Bonar Law was dismissive of Wilson’s hopes that, like J.C.Smuts, he might be invited to join the War Policy Committee, and also poured cold water on the idea of Wilson becoming an MP. Wilson did not agree with Milner’s suggestion that he succeed Sarrail as Commander-in-Chief at Salonika. Éamon de Valera of Sinn Fein had recently won the East Clare by-election (caused by the death of Willie Redmond) and on a visit to Currygrane (his first in eight years) everyone he spoke to – judges, landowners, police officers, a Redmondite local politician and “some natives” agreed on the need for conscription. Brock Millman argued that the threat to stand for Parliament was blackmail to get a military job out of Lloyd George, but Keith Jeffery rejects this, arguing that Wilson would have been no threat as a new MP but as a military adviser was a useful rival to Robertson, whom by July 1917 French was telling Wilson Lloyd George wanted to remove. Wilson took up Eastern Command, whose headquarters were conveniently at 50 Pall Mall in London, on 1 Sep 1917.[90]
With the Third Battle of Ypres, to which the War Cabinet had reluctantly agreed on condition that it did not degenerate into a long-drawn out fight like the Somme - already bogged down in unseasonably early wet weather, French (14 August 1917) told Riddell (managing director of the News of the World, and likely to pass on French's views to Lloyd George) that Robertson was “anxious to get the whole of the military power into his own hands, that he is a capable organiser but not a great soldier, and we are suffering from a lack of military genius” and that Henry Wilson’s talents were being wasted, and that the government was not ascertaining “the views of our leading soldiers”. Wilson thought “ridiculous and unworkable” a suggestion by Lloyd George that all Robertson’s plans be submitted to a committee of French, Wilson and one other, and over lunch with French (who was “quite good about” Haig for fighting and demanding the maximum in resources but highly critical of Robertson) and Lloyd George on 23 August suggested an inter-Allied body of three Prime Ministers and three soldiers be set up over all the national Staffs. Lloyd George agreed, telling Wilson that he should be the British military member, and told him to sell the plan to the rest of the War Cabinet. Wilson also suggested that the autumn and winter mud in Flanders would be an ideal time to build on recent successes in Palestine and Mesopotamia without interfering with Western Front Offensives in 1918.[91]
The War Cabinet (11 October 1917) invited Wilson and French to submit formal written advice, a blatant undermining of Robertson’s position. Dining with Wilson and French the night before, Lloyd George claimed that Robertson was “afraid of Haig, & that both of them are pigheaded, stupid & narrow visioned” and called Haig’s recent paper (8 October), which predicted that “decisive success is expected next year” provided Russia continued to pin down as many German divisions as currently, “preposterous”. Wilson consulted Macdonogh ( Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office) who held out little prospect of breaking the German Army but thought “the heart of the German people” might break in a year, and Macready (Adjutant-General) who warned that the British Army was facing a shortfall of 300,000 men by that time. Over lunch on 17 October Lloyd George wanted Wilson’s paper rewritten to remove “all semblance of dictation” by the new inter-Allied body. Wilson thought Haig’s assumption about Russia “a large one” and once again urged winter offensives against Turkey and Bulgaria. He affirmed that he was in principle a “Westerner” but wrote that it was “no use throwing “decisive numbers at the decisive time at the decisive place” if “the decisive numbers do not exist, the decisive hour has not yet struck and if the decisive place is ill-chosen””.[92]
Wilson delivered copies of the two papers to Hankey on 20 October. Hankey suspected that the plan of a staff of generals in Paris would alone be enough to drive Robertson to resignation. On 24 October Wilson breakfasted with Derby, who warned him that he had not yet submitted the papers as French’s was “too personal” and Wilson’s “too unanswerable”. Lloyd George asked French to tone down his comments about Robertson, which Hankey and Wilson helped him do. On 26 October papers were at last sent to the CIGS, having been overtaken by disaster on the Italian front. The Battle of Caporetto began on 24 October, which Wilson was worried might lead to revolution in Italy. Lloyd George had persuaded the Cabinet to agree to a Supreme War Council, and persuaded the French to agree (in the hope that the British might be persuaded to take over more line). Lloyd George told Wilson that he was to be the British Military Representative, and that although he disliked his politics he admired him “as a man & a soldier” and that the future of the war rested in his shoulders – Milner told him much the same, adding that it was “the eleventh hour”. Wilson accompanied Lloyd George, Smuts and Hankey to Rapallo. When he arrived on 5 November he met Robertson who had gone on ahead to supervise the transfer of British reinforcements to Italy – under questioning from Wilson Robertson said that he would not have done anything differently over the last two years – which Wilson thought “curious”, noting that “since he has been CIGS we have lost Roumania, Russia & Italy & have gained Bullecourt, Messines & Paschendal (sic)”. The SWC was formally established on 7 November, containing the Prime Minister and a minister from each of the Western front powers (i.e. excluding Russia), to meet at least once a month. Foch, Wilson and Cadorna were appointed Military Representatives, to whom the General Staffs of each country were to submit their plans. Hankey, although not as hostile to Robertson as the Prime Minister was, had come to be a supporter of Wilson, and wrote to Lloyd George stating that Wilson was uniquely qualified for the job, owing in part to his close relations with the French Army and personal friendship with Foch. Robertson contemplated resignation, as he had over the French-Wilson papers, and Lloyd George (Memoirs ii 440-1) later wrote of Robertson’s “general sulkiness” and “sullen and unhelpful” attitude at Rapallo.[93]
Robertson later claimed in his memoirs that he supported the SWC as a political body (p to FM 328), but not the divided military counsels. The French saw it as a device to increase their control over the Western Front, and indeed tried to have Foch, rather than an independent general, on the body. Only the Italians got what they wanted: Franco-British reinforcements. Wilson, sent to inspect the Italian Front, was worried that Venice might fall and openly instructed the new Italian commander Diaz to construct new defensive positions on the River Brenta, which in the event were not needed as the line of the River Piave held. Lloyd George and the generals were briefing the press against one another - Robertson was briefing the Morning Post, and after Lloyd George’s Paris speech (12 November) at which he said that “when he saw the appalling casualty lists” he “wish(ed) it had not been necessary to win so many (“victories”)” Robertson briefed Asquith – however, Lloyd George survived the Commons debate (19 November) by claiming that the aim of the Supreme War Council was purely to “coordinate” policy.[94]
Lloyd George persuaded the War Cabinet that although Wilson was subject to the authority of the Army Council he should nonetheless have “unfettered” discretion as to the advice he gave. Derby got the Prime Minister to agree that Robertson should accompany Wilson to all Supreme War Council meetings, although Lloyd George then restored Wilson's freedom of action by asking that Wilson should send his reports directly to him. On the train to Paris Lloyd George, Milner and Wilson had “long talks” about Derby and Robertson’s obstruction. Clemenceau wanted to have Foch (French Army Chief of Staff) as French member of the War Council, but was persuaded to appoint Foch’s protégé Weygand instead – Wilson correctly guessed that Foch would eventually become Allied generalissimo. The initial SWC meeting was at the Hotel Trianon at Versailles on 1 December 1917. Clemenceau was in the chair, with Lloyd George, Orlando, Colonel House (representing President Wilson) and Milner also present. Clemenceau’s speech, drafted by Hankey, tasked the military representatives with studying the prospects for the 1918 campaign, and in particular whether German defeat would be best brought about by attacks on her allies. Allenby’s successes, culminating in the Fall of Jerusalem (9 December 1917), demonstrated the potential of attacks in the Middle East, particularly compared to Haig’s offensive at Cambrai in November (initial success followed by retaking of gains). Russia had finally collapsed (Brest Litovsk Armistice 16 December) yet only a handful of American divisions were available so far in the west.[95]
The military representatives, egged on by Wilson, beginning 13 December 1917, recommended coordinated defence and reserves from north sea to Adriatic, as well as reorganisation of the Belgian Army and preparing studies of the Italian and Salonika Fronts. That month Wilson defended Haig to Clemenceau and Foch, both of whom wanted him removed (Clemenceau preferred Allenby as Haig’s replacement, Foch preferred Plumer), telling Clemenceau that Haig was the right man for the “bad times” which were coming. However, he criticised Robertson, although when told (by Milner) of rumours that he was to be given Robertson’s job he said that he preferred to stay in Versailles and be given ever more power, with Robertson reduced “from the position of a Master to that of a servant”. Wilson worked even on Christmas Day. He set up three main sections “Allied” and “Enemy” operations, and “Material and Manpower” – the latter under Frederick Sykes covered both sides and included air power. There was also a “Political” Branch under Leo Amery, although he reported to Hankey back in London. However, Rawlinson was unimpressed by the calibre of Wilson’s staff and the young Archibald Wavell thought the atmosphere overly pessimistic.[96]
Wilson had his staff play a “war game”, which he demonstrated to important visitors and the contents of which became Joint Note 12. Haig was bored when shown it and read a memorandum in his hand, although a large part of the reason for setting up the SWC was the poor intelligence and advice which Haig had been receiving from Charteris.[97]
SWC Joint Note 12 declared that the safety of France was assured provided total Allied strength was kept up and 2 US divisions arrived per month. Leaving aside improbables such as Central Powers internal collapse or Russian revival, it predicted that neither side could win a decisive victory on the Western Front in 1918, although decisive results could be had against Turkey (although, at French insistence, no further troops were to be sent), possibly leading to diversion of German troops and encouragement of pro-Allied elements in Romania and southern Russia. Haig thought “Wilson is playing the tune called by Lloyd George” and Robertson, who opposed efforts against Turkey thought it “d-----d rot in general” and promised Haig he would “stick to (his) guns and clear out if (he was) overruled”. Joint Note 12 and Note 14 proposing the formation of a General Reserve were discussed at the second full session of the SWC (30 January – 2 February): Robertson argued with Lloyd George, who was angry and told Wilson afterwards that he would have to get rid of Robertson. In accordance with Lloyd George’s wishes an Executive Board was set up to control the General Reserve, with Clemenceau’s agreement being obtained by having Foch rather than Weygand on it. Robertson asked to be on the Board but was overruled. Wilson thought “the long duel between me and Robertson has ended in his complete defeat … I wonder will he resign”.[98]
2 February 1918 is the first diary entry in which Wilson expressly talked of a conflict between himself and Robertson. The Supreme War Council created an inter-allied staff to discuss railways and tank production as well as war plans – plan was for a breathing space in 1918 until the Americans were present in force, and in the meantime carry on winning cheap victories in the Middle East. Sidney Clive argued that if the SWC had existed two or three years earlier reserves could have been sent to Italy rather than to the pointless Salonika expedition.[99]
Robertson called the Executive War Board the “Versailles Soviet” and claimed to Lord Stamfordham that having “practically, two CIGSs” would lead to “destruction of confidence amongst the troops”. He also briefed H.A.Gwynne against the proposals, writing that “the little man” was “all out for (his) blood” and “to see that the fine British Army is not placed at the mercy of irresponsible people – & some of them foreigners at that”.[100]
Milner (already being spoken of as a potential Secretary of State for War) told Wilson (10 February) that Lloyd George wanted to move Robertson to Versailles. Wilson, who was building up a prestigious post for himself there, seems from his diary not to have particularly welcomed the suggestion that he become CIGS. Ironically, if he became CIGS he wanted Robertson (whom he thought would refuse) or whoever else replaced him at Versailles to report to himself. Derby vacillated, there was talk of the government falling, Lloyd George attempted to have Robertson swap jobs with Plumer in Italy (Plumer refused). Rawlinson wrote to Gwynne (14 February 1918) that the best solution was to give Robertson a powerful role at Versailles and have Wilson as a weak CIGS in London “where he will not be able to do much mischief - especially if Squiff replaced LG as PM”.[101]
The King thought it would be “a national calamity” if Robertson was removed but when told of this Lloyd George told Lord Stamfordham that “he did not share the King’s extremely favourable opinion” of Robertson “who had never fought at the Front, had hardly ever visited the trenches, and who was not known by the rank and file” and that the government would resign if the King attempted to block Robertson’s removal. Some ministers – Curzon and Balfour – were sympathetic to Robertson’s position that the Versailles delegate must report to the CIGS, but he lost Balfour’s sympathy at a Cabinet meeting on 14 February where he made clear his dislike of Wilson. He had told Stamfordham that he would serve at Versailles under Plumer as CIGS, but not under Wilson “his Junior”. Wilson was appointed CIGS 18 Feb 1918, formally appointed the next day. Lloyd George, possibly aware that Robertson was dependent on his army pay, suggested he be given command of an Army in France, but Haig said he “was quite unfitted to command troops”. Wilson and Robertson had a very brief handover meeting at the War Office, at which Robertson (by Wilson’s account) was “grumpy and ungracious & said he had nothing to say – and indeed said nothing”.[102]
Foch was pleased at Wilson’s appointment, although Haig noted in his diary (25 February) that Wilson was no longer so keen on a strong Versailles staff under Rawlinson. Rawlinson for his part supported Haig’s unwillingness to release any divisions to the General Reserve. Petain only agreed to release 8 French divisions and made a bilateral agreement with Haig to assist one another. Wilson protested to Lloyd George, who commented that Haig’s attitude was “very stupid & short sighted but agreed we could not force Haig at this moment“. Wilson defended Haig’s position to the War Cabinet (6 March) and blamed Clemenceau and Petain (both of whom disliked Foch) and wrote in his diary that the British government had little choice but to back Haig “wrong as I believe him to be”. At a SWC Meeting in London (14-15 March) Foch agreed under protest to shelve the Allied Reserve.[103]
On 21 March the German Michael Offensive began. Wilson wrote that 23 March was “an anxious day”. The War Cabinet agreed to send out 50,000 “boys” of 18 ½ - 19 together with another 82,000 men from Britain, along with 88,000 returning from leave. A British division was recalled from Italy, Allenby was instructed to hold one ready, and Lord Reading (Ambassador in Washington) was asked to urge President Wilson to send US reinforcements quicker.[104]
On 24 March Foch telegraphed Wilson “asking what I thought of situation & we are of one mind that someone must catch a hold or we shall be beaten”. Wilson reached GHQ at Montreuil at 11.30am on 25 March, having left London at 6.50am. He chided Haig for having, together with Petain, blocked the plan for an Allied reserve, although in fact Petain sent a dozen divisions and it is unclear that a committee would actually have acted any faster. Wilson was present at the Doullens (26 March) and Beauvais (3 April) conferences at which Foch was appointed Allied generalissimo.[105]
The aim of standing on the defensive had been to conserve British manpower, so as not to leave Britain weakened vis-à-vis the Americans. Wilson thought that Irish conscription would gain an extra 150,000 men, as well as helping to round up political malcontents. As recently as January Lloyd George had been opposed, worried that it would cause trouble in Ireland and weaken the position of John Redmond’s party (worries shared by the administration in Dublin) and about the effect on Irish American and Irish Australian opinion. During the German "Michael" Offensive Lloyd George changed his mind and with Milner’s support, but over the reservations of the head of the RIC, announced at the War Cabinet (25 March) that conscription was to be extended to Ireland, partly to placate British trade unions at the extension of conscription to British War Industries. When he announced the measure in the House of Commons (9 April), he announced that Home Rule was also to be introduced in Ireland, although Wilson was convinced that the southern nationalists would never accept it if Ulster was given the “safeguards” promised by Lloyd George. Irish conscription was never implemented but the threat galvanised Irish politics and led to Sinn Fein’s victory in December 1918.[106]
Viscount French was sent to Ireland to bring in conscription.[107]
On 10 April he impressed on Foch the need to keep contact with the British right flank if the BEF felt compelled to retreat on the Channel Ports. By late April, reassured by the British Admiralty that if necessary Calais and Boulogne could be abandoned, Wilson finally agreed (2 May 1918) that the British could retreat south-west if attacked again, but this decision never had to be implemented.[108]
Wilson, along with Milner and Hankey (Leo Amery sometimes covering for him), was on the X Committee, an inner circle which met to brief Lloyd George prior to War Cabinet meetings. Two thirds of the meetings were in the crisis period between May and the halting of the German offensives in July 1918. In early June, after the Third Battle of the Aisne, even Wilson feared the French might be “done”. Wilson travelled to France four times, seeing Foch and Haig each time and Clemenceau on three of them.[109]
Despite their friendship, Wilson did not allow Foch a completely free rein to command or criticise the British, and in October Foch told Derby that Robertson was “a far sounder man than Wilson” with a greater grasp of strategic detail, but less able to keep the British Cabinet on side.[110]
Wilson visited Italy again at the end of June 1918. He submitted a long paper to the War Cabinet in July, recommending that the Allies hold the line, with only limited offensives, for the second half of 1918, and that their future offensives should have ever greater emphasis on artillery, tanks, aircraft and machine guns. He was convinced that the war would ultimately be won in the west, causing and Lloyd George to complain (30 July 1918) that it was “Wully Redivivus”. In his War Memoirs (pp1857-66) Lloyd George later poured scorn on Wilson for seeking the advice of Haig and Petain in this paper and for not having foreseen the Allied victories of autumn 1918, but neither Lloyd George nor many other people did at the time. Wilson also dismissed as unlikely the internal collapse which overcame the Central Powers in late 1918. Wilson also wanted to reinforce the Near East - although not enough to satisfy Amery - lest Germany and Turkey were left free by the collapse of Russia to expand there, which would improve their position in any future war a decade hence.[111]
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Leo Amery
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Nivelle
- Jeffery, Keith (2006). Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: A Political Soldier. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820358-2.
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- Aldrich, Robert (1996). Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion. Macmillan, London. ISBN 0-333-56740-4.
- Cassar, George H. (2011). Lloyd George at War, 1916-18. Anthem Press, London. ISBN 978-0-857-28392-4.
- Clayton, Anthony (2003). Paths of Glory. Cassell, London. ISBN 0-304-35949-1.
- Crosby, Travis B. (2014). The Unknown Lloyd George, A Statesman in Conflict. I B Tauris, London. ISBN 978-1-780-76485-6.
- Doughty, Robert A. (2005). Pyrrhic Victory. Havard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02726-8.
- Eisenhower, John S.D. (2001). Yanks. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-743-22385-0.
- Greenhalgh, Elizabeth (2005). Victory Through Coalition. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-09629-4.
- Herwig, Holger (2009). The Marne. Random House. ISBN 978-0-8129-7829-2.
- Palmer, Alan (1998). Victory 1918. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-841124-6.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: length (help) - Philpott, W. (2009). Bloody Victory: The Sacrifice on the Somme and the Making of the Twentieth Century (1st ed.). London: Little, Brown. ISBN 978-1-4087-0108-9.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - Senior, Ian (2012). Home Before the Leaves Fall: A New History of the German Invasion of 1914. Osprey. ISBN 978-1-848-84209-0.
- Tuchman, Barbara (1962). August 1914. Constable & Co. ISBN 978-0-333-30516-4.
- Sumner, Ian (2012). They Shall Not Pass: The French Army on the Western Front 1914-1918. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-849-08843-5.
JOFFRE
Joffre was an agnostic in religious views, unlike many French generals who were Catholic (and of the generation educated in the Catholic teaching which had grown up after the Loi Falloux) and therefore suspected of hostility to the Third Republic.[112]
Joffre served under Gallieni in Madagascar.[113]
On 7 September Gallieni was ordered not to communicate directly with the government. This left Joffre all-powerful, as he had sacked so many generals and Gallieni was his only serious rival. [114]
By early December 1914 Gallieni was being mooted as a potential Commander-in-Chief in Joffre’s place, or Minister of War, or both. [115]
On 7 January 1915, over Joffre’s opposition, President Poincare came out in favour of the proposal of Franchet d’Esperey, Gallieni and Aristide Briand (Justice Minister) for an expedition to Salonika, which he hoped would detach first Turkey then Austria-Hungary, leaving Germany “doomed”. [116]
Doughty writes of the Marne: “Gallieni’s role was important, but the key concept and decisions lay with Joffre” (Joffre recovered from the initial disastrous attacks into Lorraine and the Ardennes and redeployed forces to the west. He kept his cool when the initial attempt to have Maunoury envelop the German west flank at Amiens failed, requiring a retreat on Paris. While the Battle of the Marne was going on, he handled the problems faced by Foch’s Ninth Army at the St Gond Marshes, de Langle’s Fourth, Sarrail’s Third near Verdun and Castelnau’s Second in the Nancy area). Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
The Paris Garrison was five territorial divisions, reinforced with Drude’s 45th Division, Zouaves and Tirailleurs Algeriens from Algeria and a brigade of mostly Breton reservist sailors. Millerand replaced Messimy as Minister of War, largely because of the poor state of the Paris defences.
Gallieni, already in poor health, was appointed Minister of War on 26 August. [117]
Maunoury’s Sixth Army and 5,000 newly arrived Moroccans were placed under him as the “Armies of Paris”. [118]
As a condition of accepting, Gallieni demanded three active corps to defend Paris. Messimy ordered Joffre to provide them on 25 August but Joffre, regarding this as interference with strategy, ignored the order. Gallieni was appointed on 26 August, not yet knowing that he did not have the resources he had demanded. However, on that day a new government (Union Sacree) was formed, and on 27 August the new War Minister Millerand visited Joffre, who promised to provide the three corps if Maunoury’s planned offensive at Amiens failed. [119]
On being appointed Military Governor Gallieni learned from Messimy that 61st and 62nd infantry divisions were being ordered north, leaving Gallieni with only 1 reserve and 3 territorial divisions. [120]
To defend Paris he initially had only the 45th Infantry Division, from Algeria. [121]
On 28 August the “Zone of Armies” was extended to cover the Paris suburbs. From 10am to 10.15am Gallieni held his one and only Council of Defence, at which his military and civil cabinets, standing up and without discussion, were made to sign the order placing Paris in a state of defence. He sacked two generals in his first two days. [122]
Joffre certainly envisaged “a battle”, probably to take place around 8 September, “between the horns of Paris and Verdun” After receiving a message from Gallieni demanding three active corps, Joffre placed Maunoury under Gallieni’s direct command. Gallieni at once drove out to inspect his new command – he was horrified by the sight of the refugees - and to visit Ebener and Maunoury. Maunoury had an active division of VII Corps, a native Moroccan brigade, and four reserve divisions: 61st and 62nd under Ebener, and 55th and 56th which had fought in Lorraine. Joffre also added the 45th division of Zouaves from Algeria, who made a huge impression marching through Paris, and IV Corps from Third Army. The Prefect of Police had resigned “on grounds of health” on being ordered to remain at his post. Gallieni stayed up with his staff all night drawing up plans for Sixth Army to give battle between the Oise and Pontoise. Joffre had Millerand place Gallieni under his own command on 2 September. [123]
Millerand, before departing (2 September), ordered Gallieni to defend Paris “a outrance”, repeating the order when Gallieni explained that it meant destroying buildings and bridges. Gallieni later recorded that he had been certain that he was remaining behind to die. A public proclamation was posted on the morning of 3 September. [124]
On 2 September, 44th anniversary of the Battle of Sedan, the government left Paris for Bordeaux. Gallieni had 4 territorial divisions 185th territorial brigade. Soon received a marine artillery brigade, 84th territorial div, 61 and 62 reserve infantry division, sixth army soon augmented by iv corps from third army. First public proclamation on 3 september promised to defend Paris “to the last extremity”. That morning he set engineers and civilian labourers to work cutting down obstacles. Paris had 2,924 guns, ranging from 155mm to 75mm. hospitals and fire departments put on alert. Gas for electricity for three months was stockpiled, along with 43 days bread, 20 days salt and 12 days meat. Pigeons brought under state control for carrying messages. For three days concrete was poured and barbed wire strung up. Lt-Col Dreyfus joined the artillery. [125]
Civilian paniquards were encouraged to leave; woods, trees, bridges and buildings were demolished to clear lines of sight for guns, and bridges and even the Eifel Tower prepared for demolition. Reconnaissance patrols were set up. [126]
On 2 September, with the Germans approaching Paris, Gallieni told Joffre that without the three corps it would be “absolutely impossible to resist”. [127]
On 3 September reports that the Germans were moving south-east across Paris. Gallieni passed these on to Joffre. [128]
Gallieni believed that Joffre’s strategy of retreating behind the Seine was “divorced from reality” as the Germans would not allow his forces enough time to rally. He spent the night of 2/3 September at his new HQ at Lycee Victor-Duruy, expecting a German attack the next day. On the morning of 3 September he learned that Kluck was marching SE across Paris, offering his flank to a French counterattack. [129][130]
On the afternoon of 3 September air reconnaissance recorded the Germans marching south east across the east side of Paris. Gallieni informed Joffre then the following morning, and on his own authority ordered Maunoury to be ready to advance, also giving him Drude’s 45th Infantry Division. [131]
On 3-4 September Joffre sent a handwritten note to Gallieni, wanting Maunoury to push east. This as in line with his 2 September modification of Instruction General No 4, envisaging a giant pocket from Paris to Verdun, of which he enclosed copies to Gallieni. [132]
Gallieni wanted to attack as quickly as possible, so as not to leave Paris uncovered. At 09.10am on 4 September he ordered Maunoury to be ready to march. On 4 September he had a 3 hour meeting with Murray, but came away thinking that Murray didn’t want to participate. That evening Gallieni visited Joffre and persuaded him to bring forward the attack to 6 September, so Maunoury would not have to fight alone. [133]
At daybreak on 4 on September, based on the reports of Paris aviators, Gallieni decided that it was “vital to act quickly”. At 9am, before obtaining Joffre’s assent, he sent orders to Maunoury to be ready to move his army that afternoon and himself to be ready to come to Paris for a conference. Having first informed Poincare in Bordeaux – in Tuchman’s view, to force the hand of Joffre, with whom he had a poor relationship -at 9.45am he had the first of a series of telephone calls, conducted through aides, as Joffre would not come to the phone, and Gallieni refused to speak to anyone else. Gallieni would later write that “the real Battle of the Marne was fought on the telephone”. The plan, depending on how much further the Germans were to be allowed to advance, was to attack north of the Marne on 6 September or south of the Marne on 7 September. [134]
Southern option would take a day longer as it forced French to cross to south of the Marne, but would allow Sixth and BEF to not be separated by the river. Joffre’s reply saying he preferred the southern option arrived after Gallieni had left for Melun. Sixth Army was to move that afternoon, then on 5th strike IV Reserve Corps in flank. A provisional agreement was drawn up, copies kept by Maunoury, Gallieni, Lt-Col Brecard to take to GQG.[135]
The Wilson-Franchet plan had Sixth Army north of the Marne. In the absence of news from Franchet, Joffre decided to delay. Leaving Gamelin to draft the orders (the southern option, with a starting date of 7 September), he had dinner with the British liaison officer Major Clive and two visiting Japanese officers, neither of whom appeared to understand a word of French. During dinner a message arrived from Franchet, and Joffre had Gamelin amend the orders for a start of 6 September, and to have Sixth Army attack north of the Marne instead. General Order No 6 was issued at 10pm.[136]
To ensure British cooperation Gallieni, accompanied by Maunoury, left Paris at 1pm to drive to BEF GHQ at Melun, driving past lines of southbound cars leaving Paris. He had already received advice from the liaison officer Victor Huguet that Sir John French, influenced by Murray and concerned at his supply lines along the lower Seine, was unlikely to join in any offensive. They arrived at 3pm to find that Murray, who was located with some difficulty, had no idea when Sir John was to return. After two hours of discussions Gallieni persuaded Murray to note down the details of the proposed attack. Whilst this was going on, Wilson (BEF Sub Chief of Staff) was having separate negotiations with Franchet d’Esperey (Fifth Army). [137]
Gallieni and Maunoury had a three hour meeting with Murray, who was unwilling to make any decision in the absence of Sir John French, who was out visiting troops. They came away with the impression that the British would not cooperate and that Murray had “une grande repugnance” for the French, but in fact Murray did draw up plans and pass them along to his boss – Murray’s deputy Wilson was also meeting Franchet d’Esperey, new commander of the fifth Army on the British right, at much the same time. [138]
Wilson returned to GHQ to find that Murray had issued orders for a retreat 10-15 miles southwest, to begin that night. Sir John, when he returned, proposed to “study the situation”. Gallieni returned to Paris and found messages from Wilson and Joffre confirming that Maunoury was to attack south of the Marne on 7 September. Gallieni, after insisting on speaking to Joffre personally on the telephone, informed him that it was too late to cancel the movement of Maunoury’s Army. Joffre agreed to bring forward the Allied offensive by a day, later writing that he had done so reluctantly lest Maunoury’s attack give the game away, although Tuchman argues that he may simply have been swayed by the dominant personality of Gallieni, his former superior. At 8.30pm Gallieni ordered the attack by Maunoury’s Army, which was in fact already under way. At 10pm Joffre issued Order 6, ordering a General Allied Offensive. [139]
At Gallieni’s urging Joffre brought the date for the attack forward to 6 September, which he would later regret. [140]
It was Gallieni’s decision to send 103 and 104 infantry regiments to the front in commandeered taxicabs (most of 7th infantry division, including artillery, had been sent to the front by rail and truck the previous night) “great publicity…militarily it was insignificant” [141] Trentinian’s 7th Infantry division was part of IV Corps. [142] 7th division attack failed completely so the taxicab troops had even less impact than sometimes supposed. .[143] 5 battalions of Trentinian’s division sent to the front in taxicabs. [144]
On 5 September Gallieni informed Maunoury that there was to be no retreat and issued secret orders for the destruction of Paris. [145]
On 7 September Gallieni was ordered not to communicate directly with the government. This left Joffre all-powerful, as he had sacked so many generals and Gallieni was his only serious rival. [146]
On 7 September, frustrated at the slowness at which the British were advancing into the gap between the German First and Second Armies. Gallieni sent Lartigue’s 8th Infantry Division to the BEF’s right (italics) flank to keep contact between the BEF and Franchet d’Esperey’s Fifth Army (NOTE the French and British generals of 1914 were extremely concerned at the prospect of armies being encircled and besieged, after what had happened to the French Armies at Sedan and Metz in 1870). Joffre, concerned that Gallieni might arouse Sir John’s “touchiness”, sent a telegram to Lord Kitchener (British War Secretary) thanking him for Sir John’s efforts. [147]
On 8 September Gallieni, concerned that with Maunoury’s Sixth Army fighting out in the open, Paris was now vulnerable, telegraphed the government in Bordeaux to discuss the possible evacuation of the civilian population from the Paris suburbs, and ordered prefects and the police to find “emergency locations” for them. Joffre telegraphed the War Minuster Millerand demanding that he cancel Gallieni’s “dangerous” message, and insisting that Gallieni was under his orders and had no business communicating directly with the government. [148]
On 8 September Gallieni ordered Maunoury, under heavy pressure from Kluck, to hold his ground. [149]
The myth that von Kluck might have triumphed on 9 September, even made it into the Official History. In fact the BEF was already over the Marne and Quast’s attack had failed, this may be why Kluck avoided meeting Hentsch directly. Is this just Senior speculating? [150]
ERE
Viviani’s government was in trouble following the resignation of Delcasse as Foreign Minister, the failed autumn offensive and the entry of Bulgaria into the war, and he survived a no confidence vote by 372-9 with many abstentions. He asked Joffre, who had told him that nine out of ten generals would make poor ministers of war, whether Gallieni would be a good replacement for Millerand. Joffre replied “perhaps” than after a pause for thought “maybe”. Although Gallieni agreed, in the event other French leaders refused to join Viviani’s government so Briand formed a new government, with Viviani as Vice-President of the Council of Ministers (Deputy PM) and Gallieni as War Minister. [151]
New government 29 October. [152]
As far back at 29 July 1915 Joffre had demanded that he be appointed commander-in-chief over all (ITALICS) French forces, including those at the Dardanelles. By November 1915 Joffre was again lobbying President Poincare that either a strong Minister of War, backed by a strong chief of staff (e.g. de Castelnau) be given strategic direction of the war – Joffre did not favour this option, believing that governments rose and fell too frequently for this to be sensible – or else that Joffre himself be appointed commander-in-chief over all fronts. Poincare was persuaded to make Joffre commander-in-chief, and Briand, initially reluctant because of the difficulty of defending Gallieni’s inclusion in his new ministry, agreed and on his first day in office asked Poincare to help him persuade Gallieni to accept Joffre’s enhanced role. Gallieni agreed and wrote to Joffre – having first shown the letter to Briand – assuring him that “you can count on me”. Briand had the two men meet and shake hands. (FOOTNOTE; Doughty’s account is sourced to Galllieni’s carnets (ITALICS) – the wording implies, without explicitly saying so, that he had already sent the letter to Joffre by the time he showed it to Poincare) [153]
At the meeting of the Superior Council of Defence (24 November 1915) Joffre had Briand address the demarcation of his own and Gallieni’s authority, and objected to the Council discussing operational matters, threatening to resign if they attempted to interfere with his “liberty”. Joffre met with Poincare and Briand both before and after the meeting to discuss the issue. Gallieni complained bitterly in his diary about the politicians’ unwillingness to stand up to Joffre. On 1 December Poincare and Briand met with Gallieni. They rejected the proposal prepared by his staff to vest authority in the Minister of War, Briand arguing that he would be obliged to answer questions in the Chamber about operational matters. Gallieni agreed that Joffre be commander-in-chief, with de Castelnau as his chief of staff, and under the War Minister’s orders. A Presidential Decree of 2 December 1915 made Joffre “Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies”, although with no authority over colonial forces in Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia. After considerable discussion this was approved by the Chamber of Deputies by 406 -67 on 9 December. [154]
Gallieni wanted to restore ministerial control over the generals, but was not supported by Briand, who wanted Joffre (who had threatened resignation) to retain the free hand which he had so far enjoyed. Instead Joffre was promoted (2 December 1915) to generalissimo of all French forces in all theatres (in practice, both Salonika and the Western Front) with de Castelnau – who was soon sidelined – as his chief of staff. [155]
Gallieni made an effort to unite soldiers and politicians, and established a working relationship in which he restricted himself to supplying resources (not dissimilar to the role to which the British War Minister, Kitchener, was restricted from the end of 1915). [156] There was also friction over Gallieni’s assertion of his right to appoint generals, Joffre’s practice of communicating directly with the British generals rather than going through the War Ministry, and Gallieni’s maintaining contacts with generals whom Joffre had replaced. [157] In Clayton’s view, Gallieni may well have been sceptical of Joffre’s plans for a massive Anglo-French offensive on the Somme, to be accompanied by Italian and Russian offensives, as floated at the Chantilly meeting in 6-8 December 1916. [158]
He cleared out soldiers from cushy jobs – three Paris theatres had been directed by Army officers. He authorised the renewed use of black African troops – 50,000 in total – on the Western Front. [159] He introduced foyers du soldat (ITALICS) - waiting rooms for soldiers in transit at railway stations. [160]
Although he supported the Salonika expedition, he shared Joffre’s low opinion of Sarrail’s military abilities. [161]
Gallieni was in poor health, with pain making him less tolerant of criticism at a time when political disquiet was growing after the failure of the Second Battle of Champagne, especially the failed attack on Hartmannswillerkopf and its subsequent total loss. [162]
In autumn 1915 Colonel Driant, commander of a chasseurs brigade, complained to Gallieni of how Joffre had been removing guns and garrisons from Verdun and even preparing some forts for demolition. Joffre was furious and disputed Gallieni’s right to comment. Driant was later killed in the opening stages of the battle.[163][164] Driant, who had served at Verdun, was a member of the Army Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. The Council of Ministers discussed his reports and President Poincare asked Gallieni to investigate. [165] Gallieni wrote to Joffre (16 or 18 December 1915) expressing concern at the state of trenches at Verdun and elsewhere on the front – in fact matters were already being taken in hand at Verdun. [166]
In the poisonous atmosphere after the opening of the German attack at Verdun (21 February) Gallieni was also, falsely, suspected of wanting to launch a military takeover of the government. He launched an angry report at the Council of Ministers on 7 March – read in his usual precise way – criticising the conduct of operations over the last eighteen months and demanding ministerial control, then resigned. It is unclear whether he was specifically trying to have Joffre ousted. [167]
On 12 November Gallieni ordered Sarrail to retreat to Salonika with as much of the Serb Army as he could gather. After Sarrail lobbied politicians for reinforcements Gallieni wrote back to 19 November telling him that he was not going to receive the four corps he wanted, although on 20 November he sent Sarrail (whom he thought “indecisive and not up to the task”) a telegram giving him a free choice as to whether to assist the latest Serb attack and when to fall back on Salonika.[168]
With Bulgarian forces pushing towards Skopje, Gallieni had to order Sarrail to cease his advance into Serbian Macedonia and instead fall back on Salonika (mid November). [169]
With evacuation of the Gallipoli bridgeheads under discussion, Gallieni was willing to divert troops there from Salonika to for one last attempt.[170] On 9-11 December Gallieni took part in the Anglo-French talks in Paris (along with Grey (British Foreign Secretary), Kitchener (British War Secretary), Joffre and Briand) at which it was decided to maintain an Allied presence in Salonika, although it was unclear how long for. He later ordered Joffre to send an extra French division, although not the two Sarrail demanded. [171]
Rumours circulated in Paris that Joffre had ordered the abandonment of Verdun at the end of February 1916 when the Germans first attacked. Gallieni demanded to see all paperwork from the period, but Joffre had made no such order in writing, merely despatching de Castelnau to assess the situation. [172]
Poincare wrote that Gallieni was trying to force Joffre’s resignation on 7 March 1916. Briand knew that publication of the report would damage morale and might bring down the government. Gallieni had prostate cancer, but was persuaded to remain in office until a replacement had been agreed. [173]
Rocques was appointed after it had been ensured that Joffre had no objections. Joffre himself had been mooted as a potential war minister. This allowed Joffre to make command changes at Verdun, sacking Army Group Commanders. [174] This would be the last attempt until Clemenceau became Prime Minister late in 1917 to assert ministerial control over the army. [175]
JOFFRE, VIVIANI
Major Joffre led a column from Segou to to Tombouctou in Mali, recovered remains of Lt-Col Bonnier who had been killed on a recent expedition. Killed over 100 Tuaregs and captured 1500 cattle. He was promoted as a result.[176]
“his personality had a profound effect on the course of history” and he became a household name in the USA. 1 april 1917 pm ribot called him into his office.[177]
Asked him to go on viviani mission (a similar British mission, led by Balfour (Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister), had recently visited the USA). Initially reluctant as nivelle’s offensive under way. 6 april us congress declared war. Problem would be training officers. Initially wanted to incorporate us companies and battalions into the French and British armies, but knew americans would never accept this.[178] 13 – 16 aptril 1917 left onb lorrain ii, made effort to cultivate reporters on board, who noticed how bus Joffre kept his smnall staff. Whilst at sea learned of failure of nivelle’s offensive. ;anded 24 april at hamprton roads, welcomed by admiral henry mayo, ambassador Jusserand and ass secty navy Roosevelt. Arrived wahingtonb following morning., meeting secy state lansing and fs balfour.[179] stayed in Washington 10 days, addressed both houses individually. 27 april met ch staff hugh scott and deputy tasker bliss.recommended sending a single unit at once. To use la pallice near la Rochelle. Requested railroads automobiles and trucks for French atmy. 30 April maj-gen bridges lobbying for uS tropps be used to make up British Army, claiming language and food would be easier. Joffre left a paper than 4 may began week’s tour of eastern udsa. In st Louis awaited turn for haircut. Lincoln springfireld, us grant. Wreaths at statues of joan of arc and Lafayette, cvisited west point. returned on 10 May to find US had accepted the recommendations in his paper. A Single division (1st, mainly regulars) was to be sent at start fo June.[180] on last day of visit to Washington, secretary baker introduced him to pershing, just selected to command the AEF, ”he can always count on me for anything in my power” .[181] 13 june Pershing landed at Boulogne. In paris that afternoon Joffre, painleve war minister, viviani, foch chief of stadd.[182] joffre recommended a unit be rushed to france to show the flag. 2nd battalion, 16th infantry was sent. Marched up champs elysees on 4 july, reviewed by Joffre and poincare.[183] pershing objected to painleve’s suggestion that Joffre head the liaison group of French officers who were helping to set up his supply lines. Pershing using brest, st nazaire, rochefort.[184]
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On returning to Ypres early in 1918, Plumer talked of renewing the offensive, but was dissuaded by Haig. [185]
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Hagen was cancelled on 19 July. By 23 July Haig was confident that there would not be another Flanders offensive. It was reported that the German Second Army had responded weakly to Australian raiding. Monash, the new commander of the Australian Corps, and Rawlinson, who had been largely sidelined throughout 1917, were both keen to conduct a successful attack.[186] On 5 July Rawlinson suggested a bigger attack. On 13 July Lawrence ordered Rawlinson to submit a plan. British First and Third Armies were to conduct minor, diversionary, attacks further north. Rawlinson originally intended a quick attack to drive the Germans out of shelling range of Amiens. There was no preliminary bombardment. III corps also attacked north of the somme. [187] Rawlinson would have preferred there to be no French involvement, a view shared by debeney.[188] PUT IN RAWLINSON AND DEBENEY On 24 July Haig, Petain and Pershing met Foch. On 26 July Haig and Foch met Rawlinson and Debeney, and insisted on French involvement. On 28 July Foch demanded that it be brought forward two days, in case the Germans pulled back. On 29 July Haig met his army commanders except Rawlinson, and told them that Foch believed they had “turned the corner” and that “army commanders must do their utmost to get troops out of the influence of Trench (italics) methods”. Haig pressed Rawlinson to aim for the Chaulnes-Roye line (12 miles, and 5 miles deeper than Rawlinson wanted to go, then further exploitation to Ham, a further 15 miles away) . [189] III corps attack was disrupted by an attack by 27th Wuertemberg Division on 6 August. [190] On 9 August Montgomery (Chief of Staff Fourth Army) countermanded the order to give 32nd Division to Currie’s Canadian corps. On 10 August Foch, who had already ordered French Third army on Debeney’s right to join in, visited Haig at 11am and urged him to attack towards the Noyon-Ham-Peronne line and try to take the Somme bridges. Currie agreed to try, perhaps against his own better judgement. On 11 august Rawlinson obtained Haig’s agreement for a pause to begin on 15 august, and that Byng’s Third Army should begin an attack towards Bapaume instead. Haig stood firm against Foch’s objections.[191]
xxxxx W&N (18 July 2013)978-0297869146 pp301-6 p293-4 The loss of Malaya, Singapore and Burma was a major blow to British prestige in the Far East. From the start of 1942 President Roosevelt and the US Government began putting on pressure for Indian independence. Roosevelt’s envoy Harry Hopkins recorded that this was the only issue on which civil relations between Churchill and the President were suspended, and himself once had to listen to “a string of cuss words” from Churchill which “lasted for two hours in the middle of the night”. Churchill was pleased at the failure of the Cripps Mission in March and April 1942, this promised Dominion Status and rapid independence, but angered Congress by proposing an opt-out for the Muslims and the Princely States. p295-6 Gandhi and the Congress leaders were at best ambivalent between Britain and Japan at this stage. Churchill was later persuaded to omit from “The Hinge of Fate” a claim that the Congress Party sought to assist a Japanese invasion of India in order to help them crush the Muslims and the Princely States. In fact the Japanese had placed a spy in Gandhi’s ashram in the late 1930s, but he had been uncovered and deported in 1940. p296 Chiang Kai-Shek visited India at FDR’s suggestion in May 1942. Churchill was contemptuous of Roosevelt’s insistence that Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime be treated as a fourth Allied world power. p297 British suppression of the “Quit India” movement was condemned by Time Magazine, which printed a portrait of Nehru on its front cover. p298 the “Quit India” movement was the most serious insurrection since the Mutiny of 1857, and featured many attacks on landowners and wealthy Indians. News that rebels in remote areas had been strafed from the air was met with approval by Conservative MPs, but not by Labour. Between 4,000 and 10,000 Indians were killed, but the vast majority did not join in the rising, and the “martial races” from whom the Indian Army was drawn, remained loyal to Britain – Army recruitment increased during the period. In September 1942 Churchill declared to Amery “I hate the Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” p299 In February 1943 he was pleased at the prospect that “a few blackamoors” might resign from the Viceregal Council. p301-6: INA was recruiting. In 1943 Labour promised independence to India after the war. Aid to USSR was a drag on shipping. Amery did not suggest Churchill’s racist asides had any serious effect on policy. In “The Hinge of Fate” Churchill complained of Britain’s debt to India (almost £1.3m by 1945), complaining of overcharging and hinting that there had been poor accounting. In August 1944 and again in April 1945 Churchill proposed to renew British rule in India with a purge of officials who were “more Indian than the Indians” and a major redistribution of land to win the support of Untouchables and poorer peasants and to break the back of the Congress Party, which he believed to be supported mainly by the wealthier classes. Amery likened this policy to that of Hitler, but Churchill openly stated that he was imitating “Russian” policy. Indian Famine Codes Churchill cross about the cost of defending India. Gandhi’s fast. He was by then elderly and frail, but also a figured revered across the world figure. Churchill, who thought Gandhi a fraud, thought this “blub and sob stuff”. Bose, the Indian nationalist leader, promised that he could have food shipped in by the Japanese with whom he was collborating. blame speculation, Japanese conquest of Burma, Bengal provincial self-government, call-up of men for labouring duties, exaggerated blaming on hoarding Churchill agreed in principle. Food was arranged from Australia and from British-occupied Iraq. Wavell may have threatened resignation. Amery called Churchill “hitler-like”. Cherwell wanted to prioritise food for the Indian Army. Italy and Greece. Spring 1944 asked in vain for US shipping
- trim caretaker gvt, Europe 1943
charmley 1940-57 36 FDR wanted to avoid the kind of secret treaties which had been common in previous generations. He was heavily influenced by Adolfe Berle, who on 8 July 1941 wrote to him that Britain was entering agreements with other friendly countries (Syria, Yugoslavia and the USSR) seeking to control Balkan and Middle East trade after the war. FDR telegraphed Churchill (14 July) that it was too early to be entering into such commitments, and asked Harry Hopkins take up the matter with him. John Winant, former Governor of New Hampshire and newly appointed Ambassador to the UK, warned FDR (1 August) that concerns about India might lessen US sympathies for Britain, and urged the President to demand that Churchill grant immediate dominion status for India. 48-9 Unlike Eden who appears to have wanted a renewed Triple Entente, Churchill often deferred to US wishes – refusing to agree that Stalin should have his 1941 frontiers (i.e. including the Baltic States, Eastern Poland and Bessarabia, seized by the USSR in 1939-41), refusing (until 1944) to recognise de Gaulle as the legitimate ruler of France, rejecting the option of a Western European alliance (nothing “save weakness” – 31 Dec 1944). The area of greatest resistance was in Imperial matters. In January 1942 Churchill professed to believe that US entry into the war had “practically superseded” the Lend Lease Agreement, Article VII of which required Britain to end Imperial Preference (adopted in 1931) and brushing aside Halifax’s warnings that a compromise would need to be negotiated. Halifax’s views were shared by Amery, Beaverbrook and even by Labour ministers. Winant thought the British position “nothing more than imperialis(m)”. 50-2 Churchill felt that Article 3 of the Atlantic Charter (the right of people to live under a government of their own choice) did not apply to India or Burma. Churchill stuck to the promise which he had made in August 1940 of Dominion Status but only after the war; Congress thought they could do better. At the Arcadia Conference in December 1941 FDR had suggested that India be given independence. In mid-Feb 1942 Berle urged that the USA should demand that India be made a full independent partner in “the United Nations”. Winant in London, the Chinese Foreign Minister and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee all expressed similar views. Churchill told Sir Ramsawar Mudaliar, an Indian representative to the War Cabinet, in Sep 1942 “For eighty years we have given (India) peace and prosperity such as has never been known in the history of that country” and that he was not “going to be a party to a policy of scuttle” and that “for the last 25 years the Conservative Party has gone on the wrong tracks, it has lost confidence in itself, and it has given way perpetually until the present state of affairs has come about. It is all wrong, thoroughly wrong. If we ever have to quit India, we shall quit it in a blaze of glory”. Vice-President Wallace, who looked forward to “the century of the common man”, believed that Churchill’s desire to maintain British rule in India “violated the whole purpose of the war” (Lord Halifax wrote of a Wallace speech on 8 June 1942 that he wanted to internationalise the New Deal and make it a “New Islam” which would rule the world as a culmination of the Roman and British Empires). Roosevelt also suggested to Churchill that a Constitutional Convention, similar to that in the USA in the 1780s, might be the way forward. 52-6 Churchill’s position was weakened after the disasters in the Far East, whilst Cripps was popular, and, after his return from Moscow, was wrongly credited with having helped to bring about Soviet entry into the war. Amery wrote to Linlithgow in September 1942 that Churchill “talks all the time and does not really read papers”. Churchill had been reluctantly persuaded to allow Cripps to offer independence after the war. Louis Johnson had acted as go-between between Cripps and the Congress Party and had helped to draw up the British offer. Despite Harry Hopkins public denials. Johnson blamed Churchill for “sabotaging” the talks and Roosevelt urged that there be “one more final effort” and that the British should offer immediate (ITALICS) independence. Hopkins was in England at the time and received “a string of cuss words” for “two hours”; Churchill claimed that such an offer would create chaos in India. Linlithgow and Eden were also irritated by US interference in Indian affairs. US entry into the war had opened the door to criticism of the British Empire from those who had previously kept quiet rather than lend encouragement to anti-British and isolationist opinion. 60-1 Churchill had said he had not “become the King’s First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire”. A trip by the Imperialist Amery to the USA in late 1942 was postponed, whilst in late 1942 there was agreement in principle on an Anglo-American joint declaration on the liberation of colonial peoples, although like Article 3 of the Atlantic Charter Britain did not intend this to apply to India and Burma. Halifax complained of the “abysmal ignorance” of American opinion over India. Late in 1942 William Phillips was appointed as US High Commissioner to India with the rank of Ambassador, and President Roosevelt was forced to deny at a press conference that his remit was to broker a deal between Britain and the Congress Party. By February 1943 Phillips was sending reports to Roosevelt urging that the Americans bring the different Indian factions together to agree on terms to be demanded from the British. Eden visited Washington in February 1943 – he thought the administration “a mad house” as Sumner Welles and Cordell Hull did not speak to one another, and wrote with disapproval of FDR’s “sweeping opinions”, of his “disposing of the fate of many lands” and that he was “a conjuror”. 119 By the end of the war India had sterling balances of £797m (Egypt had £297m) which, to American irritation, she was required to spend on exports from Britain or to write off British loans. 185 Amery observed that it was no bad thing that Labour ministers lacked Churchill’s opposition to concessions, “the policy which has brought us to our present miserable pass in India”. 193-5 Britain’s Far Eastern empire was reconquered, whilst Indian troops played a major role in reconquering the French and Dutch Far Eastern empires. The cost of modernising the Indian Army fell on Britain. Britain had had to pay for the deployment of Indian troops outside India and for the capital investment to increase India’s war production. In 1941-3 Britain spent more on the Indian Army than did the Government of India and even in 1945 Britain spent £410m, almost as much as the Indian Governmnt. Gallagher writes that “India during the war exploited Britain” 237, 259, 283 Britain was keen to maintain friendly relations with newly-independent India rather than see her become leader of a neutral “anti-imperialist” bloc at the United Nations, and in November 1952 Eden infuriated US Secretary of State Dulles by giving a friendly hearing to Krishna Menon’s attempt to broker peace in Korea. In an angry tirade Dulles threatened that this might be the end of the US-British alliance, although the situation was saved by a Soviet attack on Menon. Eden would later attempt in vain to draw India into a regional anti-communist alliance (Pakistan and Ceylon remained pro-western) 281 In April 1954 Churchill complained to his doctor that Britain, having abandoned India, should be helping France to maintain her position in Indo-China, but this had little effect on Eden’s efforts to broker peace in the region.
Martin Gilbert Never despair 141 – by the start of September 1945 Churchill was openly talking of India being “lost” 191 – in conversation with Bernard Baruch he argued that the large sterling balances being held on behalf of India and Egypt were balanced by the debts which Britain had incurred to those countries in defending them. EXPLAIN sterling balances, US loan, US demand for convertibility. 229-30 drafted a letter to Attlee (1 May 1946), which in the end he did not send, in which he explained that his support for the Cripps Mission had been given reluctantly and in the vain hope that it would unite India behind the war effort, and that although he still favoured Dominion Status as an interim step, he reserved the right to oppose immediate (ITALICS) independence, with the risk of civil strife. He also urged that Britain retain a military presence in the Suez Canal and the Anglo-Egyptian condominium over the Sudan, and that the Americans be urged to share the burden of Britain’s presence in Palestine. 233-4, 248 After Attlee proposed that the Indians, who had rejected Dominion Status, be allowed to choose their own constitutional arrangements, Churchill spoke in Parliament (16 May 1946) demanding that the interests of the Muslims, the Princely States and the Untouchables be protected, and earning the grateful thanks of all of those. He spoke again in similar vein in July. 276 Churchill was publicly attacked by the Muslim leader Jinnah (October 1946) for not doing enough to help the Muslims. He drafted, but did not send, an indignant reply. 292 Jinnah visited Churchill privately at Chartwell, and at Churchill’s suggestion that arranged to communicate secretly by telegram rather than be seen to be publicly associated. 294-5 In Parliament in December 1946 and January 1947 Churchill condemned the inter-communal violence, much of it directed against Muslims, which was breaking out in India. 297-302 Indian independence was initially scheduled for June 1948, although this would later be brought forward almost by a year. Churchill received a brief (6 March 1947) from Enoch Powell, then working at the Conservative Research Department, on the legal status of India once she had Dominion Status. Churchill thought Nehru’s interim government “a complete disaster” and attacked him as “the leader of the caste Hindus”, and in other speeches deplored the fact that there were three or four times as many British troops in Palestine as in India. 332-7 With Churchill and senior Conservatives met Attlee and Mountbatten (20 May 1947) and agreed to accept partition and Dominion Status, with India and Pakistan free to choose complete independence later on if they chose. On 26 May, at Churchill’s suggestion, Mountbatten and Ismay (?job) met Anderson, Salisbury, Eden, Macmillan and Simon to discuss the details. Churchill then protested that the Bill was called the “Indian Independence Bill”, although Attlee explained that it made little difference as Dominion Status meant practical independence. On 8 July Ismay travelled to Chartwell to obtain Churchill’s agreement that, at Jinnah’s insistence, Mountbatten should become Governor-General of independent India but not of Pakistan. India and Pakistan became independent on 15 August 1947. 353-4 in his constituency (27 Sep 1947) he spoke out against the intercommunal violence in India, against which he had warned in 1931 and 1935, and making an exaggerated forecast that it would be the start of “a vast abridgement of the population” and “retrogression of civilisation”. 422, 431 In July 1948 he protested strongly at the Indian Government’s blockade of Hyderabad State, likening it to the Soviet blockade of Berlin, arguing that Hyderabad was a sovereign state, as entitled to independence as landlocked Austria, Czechoslovakia or Switzerland, and having an angry exchange with Attlee over the government’s refusal to enforce the treaty guaranteeing Hyderabad’s independence. Hyderabad was eventually annexed by India. 472 28 April 1949 he welcomed the decision of the London Conference of Commonwealth Premiers that India be permitted to join the Commonwealth as an independent Republic. FOOTNOTE: the Commonwealth is an international organisation of which the British Monarch is head. The British Monarch is Head of State of some Commonwealth countries, but others are republics. 861 Monty to lunch and dinner 5 July telling him that before the Korean War he had “never heard of the bloody place” but had helped the Americans to rearm. Didn’t see why we should fight for Indo=China when we had given up India. Monty protested the strategic importance of Indo-China but agreed that we could hold the Isthmus. 951 At the Bermuda Conference (December 1953) he praised the “exertions” of the French to hold onto Indo-China and North Africa, compared to the “colossal disaster” when Britain “cast away her duties in India”. 958 (12 March 1954) told Rab Butler “I feel like an aeroplane at the end of it flight, in the dusk, with the petrol running out, in search of a safe landing”. Butler recorded that his only remaining “political interest” was to seek a summit with the Soviets before he retired to finish his History of the English Speaking Peoples. 1093-4 In 1955 Churchill saw India under Nehru as a potential leader of “Free Asia” against the communists. 1250 in 1957 he admitted that had he won the 1945 election he would have been obliged to grant Indian independence in accordance with the pledge given by the pre-war Conservative government. 1336 Professor Seddon recorded : “I have never met anyone who could make a modest dose of cognac last so long” summer 1962 whilst in hospital being treated for a broken hip (aet 87), admitted that he had no idea what Churchill had been like in his younger days
RRJ ASIF
- James, Robert Rhodes. Churchill: A Study in Failure, 1900–1939 (1970) ISBN 978-0-29-782015-4
p181-2 In March 1929 Churchill rejected as “selfish” a request that he cut motor vehicle tax. At the time there were over a million private cars in Britain. He told a delegation that he declined to spend any more money on the roads, as this would be harmful to the railways. Lack of government sympathy for farmers who were being injured by the dumping of cheap German wheat, caused the National Farmers Union threaten to campaign against Conservative candidates. On 19 February backbench anger at the level of compensation to be given to Irish Loyalists caused him to have to withdraw his Supplementary Estimate p182 Harold Macmillan later wrote of his final budget speech “none of us had ever heard anything of the kind … such mastery of language, such careful deployment of the arguments, such dextrous covering of any weak points. (Winds of Change p176) He abolished the tax on tea and attacked Keynes’ proposals for public works to alleviate unemployment as “camouflaged inflation”. “The Times” attacked his plans for dealing with the National Debt as “concealed burglary and open robbery”. p183 Baldwin attracted ridicule by speaking gravely of increased exports of broccoli to the continent. Viscount Cecil urged support for candidates who favoured a “vigorous and progressive peace policy” – this was thought to harm the Conservatives. p183 Churchill gave a party political broadcast on 30 April. During the election campaign he also accused Sir John Simon, unopposed by a Conservative candidate as a condition of accepting the chairmanship of the Simon Commission, of “firing from under the white flag”. Birkenhead defended Simon. p186 Had Baldwin won the election, he had planned to reshuffle Churchill to the India Office. p183 Austen Chamberlain held his seat by a mere 43 votes. Baldwin resigned on 4 June, rejecting advice that, as in 1924, he “meet the new Parliament” and force Labour to vote out his government. p184-6 in 1926 A.G.Gardiner saw Churchill as “an Ishmael in public life” hated by all three parties, with Labour seeing him as “the potential Mussolini” “he sees … all other men as mere cyphers, whose function it I to follow after and multiply his value a million-fold” “he has always been true to the only Party he really believes in – that which is assembled under the hat of Mr Winston Churchill”. Derby wrote of him “You never know what kite he is going to fly next” The publication of “The World Crisis” and Beaverbrook’s “Politicians and the War” had improved his reputation somewhat. Bonar Law’s view in 1917 was that “I think he has very unusual intellectual ability, but at the same time he seems to have a very unbalanced mind”. In August 1929 Amery called him “a mid-Victorian, steeped in the politics of his father’s period, and unable ever to get the modern point of view”. In 1931 Harold Nicholson wrote that he was “ the most interesting man in England”, with his fine qualities ruined by his impatience. p186 in the summer of 1929 Churchill was widely suspected of plotting with Lloyd George for a renewed coalition, or with Rothermere and Beaverbrook to attack Baldwin’s leadership. INCLUDE DRINK
Charmley EOG
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robin prior churchill’s world crisis as history 1983 croom helm ltd provident house burrell road Beckenham kent ISBN 0-7099-2011-3
Strategic Options 1916
p210-1 churchill argued that Germany could have broken the blockade in 1916 by acquiring the food-growing areas of the Ukraine. Prior sees this as a “Dardanelles stategy” and suggests that if Russia could have been pushed to collapse in 1917 the effect of the transfer of troops to the westmight have been more effective than it would be a year later, however falkenhayn relaised that Germany did not have the resources to achieve this, let alone after the Anglo-French offensive on the Somme had kicked off. Russia had more munitions and Brusilov Offensive showed Russia far from beaten, and it is unlikely that the accession of Romania to the Central Powers would have made mch of an addition to their strength. It might, in Prior’s view, have been more prudent for Germany to stand on the defensive and wait for the Allies to concede a compromise peace after failing to defeat her, but this strategy had as little appeal to Falkenhayn at the time as it did to Churchill a decade later.
p211-2 Churchill also proposed that the Allies should have made “a surprise attack on the dardanelles” in 1916, using up to twenty divisions then in Egypt (many of these were redeployed to France in the event) and Salonika. Prior dismisses this as logistically impossible, especially in viewof the need to commit to a major offensive in France, that surprise would have been very unlikely, and that Churchill did not make any such proposal at the time
The Somme
p212-3 in “The Historian” in Churchill :four faces and the man allen lane 1969 p 143 j h plumb claimed that for the 1916-18 period churchuill had had to rely on published accounts rather than primary documents. This is untrue, he in fact received a great deal of help from the official historian James Edmonds, whose own volume on the Somme did not appear until the 1930s, and who also, in prior’s view, used Churchill “as a means of putting forward ideas considered too frank for the Official History”. He also supplied Churchill with “all the General Staff appreciations relating to the Somme and Haig’s reports and correspondence with Robertson”, as well as translations of German accounts, including that of the German 27th Infantry Division and of fighting on the Schwaben and Ancre sector. Churchill’s account of the opening hours of the battle on 1 July was almost entirely ghost-written by Edmonds, and Churchill also agreed to tone down some of his sarcastic comments about the British High Command, and to include material about the damage which the Somme Offensive inflicted on the German Army. Edmonds does not, however, appear to replied to Churchill’s request for information about the development of the creeping barrage, a topic which is in the end not discussed in Churchill’s account.
213-4 Edmonds wrote to Churchill “I can find nothing against your general line of argument” (8 July 1926) and described Churchill’s account as “a work of art” and “Perfectly fair” (6 August 1926). Prior writes that this “unqualified praise” of an account so different to that which Edmonds was himself later to publish “defies explanation”. Edmonds collaboration with Churchill was kept secret at the time, not least as he was providing access to documents which were then still secret.
p214-6 Churchill argued that the British and French commanders made a mistake in attacking at “what was undoubtedly the strongest and most perfectly defended position in the world”, although Prior points out that none of the alternatives, Ypres or Loos, or Champagne or Artois for the French, were any easier. Joffre claimed he first suggested the area to Haig (letter to Haig 26 Dec 1915, quoted in Joffre’s own memoirs, mostl likely as it was the point where the British and French forces were adjacent so he could exercise some control over events) and in January haig reported that he was prepaing plans for an attack north of the somme whilst foch prepared one further south (Haig to Robertson 3 jan 1916, Robertson paperes 27 Jan 1916). Joffre intended haig’s attack to be a wearing-out attack prior to the main frnehc offensive. Haig was also preparing plans for an offensive in Flanders to be conducted simultaneously with the main French attack south of the Somme(Haig diary 14 January 1916). Haig then insisted that the British contribution to the Somme be larger and simultaneous with the French attack (Haig to Joffre 1 February 1916), to which Joffre agreed. After the German attack on Verdun began, Haig, believing that worthwhile strategic objectives on the Somme front were too far away, informed Kitchener that he planned to revert to his intention to attack in Flanders, but agreed to stick to the Somme plan after being reassured that there would still be major French participation(Haig diary 25 February 1916). Haig did not “resist” an attack on the Somme sector as was sometimes claimed by his apologists.
p216 Churchill argued that it was clear from the unprecedented artillery bombardment and positioning of cavalry near to the front lines that Haig was in pursuit of a breakthrough. Robert Blake saw main purpose as attrition and relieving Verdun (p152). Haig wanted “such a victory over the enemy’s forces as will compel him to retreat and thereby open up possibilities of further tactical and strategical success.” (Haig to Joffre 10 February) Compare Rawlinson who wanted only to seize the German front line before attacking the German second line a few days later (Draft Plan 3 April) Haig then scaled down his aspirations to seizure of the Montauban Ridge just beyond the German second line, with further exploitation dependent on “developments”.(Haig to Joffre 10 April) However, Haig still hankered over a deeper breakthrough and told Rawlinson that he should consider reaching Combles on the German Third Line (which did not in fact fall until October) on the first day (Rawlinson Diary 23 May) Haig later urged Rawlinson to keep the cavalry close to the front in case enemy resistance broke and it was possible to break through into open country (memorandum by Kiggell 16 June) and in a letter to Joffre Haig identified Cambrai-Douai as distant, fourth-stage, objectives(Haig to Joffre 26 June). Robertson told the War Committee “there was no idea of any attempt to break through the German lines, it would only be a move to “degager” the French (War Committee Minutes 30 May) and Haig also spoke of the sole object being “of relieving the pressure on Verdun” (Haig to Robertson 1 June and 10 June).
p217 Churchill was to some extent, in Prior’s view, justified to focus on Haig’s attempt to achieve a breakthrough, as Haig continued to hanker after such a result, whereas, in Prior’s view, a more limited attack under more concentrated artillery fire would have inflicted greater attrition on the enemy. In fact some British formations cracked (115th Brigade, part of 38th Division, “failed to attack” on 7 July and another brigade on the night of 7/8 July. The division was withdrawn), although German casualties were increased by their own foolish policy of counterattacks to regain lost ground. Churchill also criticised the long bombardment, which gave away any chance of surprise, although in Prior’s view it is unlikely that an attack by 14 divisions (as opposed to smaller attacks like Messines and Cambrai) could have been disguised, and Churchill appears unaware that Haig had pushed for a shorter bombardment before reluctantly bowing to the wishes of Rawlinson, commander of Fourth Army. Haig wanted a surprise hurricane bombardment (Haig to Rawlinson 13 April) but Rawlinson thought a long bombardment would cut German wire as well as depriving the defenders of food, ammunition and sleep and that there was little chance of surprise anyway (Rawlinson to Haig 19 April) and persuaded Haig to change his mind (Rawlinson diary 13 May). Rawlinson told the Corps Commanders “nothing could exist at the conclusion of the bombardment in the area covered by it” (Edmond VII p.288) p218 – depth and method of construction of German dugouts was well-known to British commanders (Fourth Army Intelligence Summary 8 June) Interrogation of prisoners had also revealed that dugouts were deep and well-sheltered (Fourth Army Intelligence Summary 7 June) Intelligence reported the same as late as 29 June (Fourth Army Intelligence Summary 29 June) On 26 June VIII Corps reported uncut wire was preventing successful trench raids, (Fourth Army War Diary 26 June) X Corps reported some uncut wire on 29 June (Fourth Army War Diary 29-30 June) and III Corps reported uncut wire on the eve of the main attack (Fourth Army War Diary 30 June). Yet Haig recorded on 30 June “the wire has never been so well cut, nor the Artillery preparation so thorough” (Haig Diary 30 June). Rawlinson also thought that “wire cutting has been well done” (Rawlinson Diary 30 June) although he also commented (30 June) that wire was not as well cut as he would have liked in places, especially on VIII Corps front (Rawlinson Diary 30 June). p218-9 Churchill did not discuss Rawlinson apropos of the Somme, but rather apropos of Amiens in 1918, possibly, in Prior’s view, as they later became good friends after 1919, sharing common interests in painting and boar hunting. Prior: “Rawlinson deserve(s) some praise for he was one of the few army commanders who showed any flexibility and he had a certain ability to learn from mistakes. Yet the mistakes which he did make on the Somme were not of a minor nature” p219-20 Churchill was right to highlight the 60,000 casualties suffered by the British on the first day, half of those who actually attacked. However, Prior points out that Churchill does not seem to have grasped the importance of communications: armies had grown too large for be easily controlled until battlefield radios and better air reconnaissance had come into use, meaning that senior generals often did not receive full reports until several days after an attack, and such reports as were received were often scrappy and contradictory. p220-1 Churchill pointed out that Haig’s continuation of the battle was motivated in part by the need to keep pressure off the French and that he was being fed misleading intelligence by Charteris. Haig recorded “signs of serious demoralisation in the ranks of many of the enemy’s units have been evident” (Haig to Robertson 8 July) “evidence of a growing deterioration in his morale accumulates daily” (Haig to Joffre 11 September) “It is not possible to say how near to breaking point the enemy may be but he has undoubtedly gone a long way towards it” (Haig to Robertson 7 October) Rawlinson recorded (19 September) “Kig(gell) says D.H. means to go on until we cannot possibly continue further either from the weather or want of troops. I’m not so sure that he is right.” (Rawlinson Diary 19 September) “[Haig] is bent on continuing the battle until we are forced to stop by the weather indeed he would like to go on all through the winter” (Rawlinson papers 6 October) Prior notes the lack of talk of impending German collapse here and suggests that the battle had “developed a momentum of its own” in Haig’s mind rather than being motivated solely by intelligence reports. The French began a small-scale counterattack at Verdun as early as 14 July and began a bombardment for a larger counterattack on 19 October; a further 70,000 British casualties were incurred on the Somme after this date. This, and the French participation on the Somme at cost of 200,000 French casualties makes hard to take seriously the claim that “taking the heat off Verdun” was a major factor in the continuation of the Somme offensive.
p221-3 churchill memo to cabinet claiming that contrary to published reports British casualties greatly exceeded German. In July 1921, while beginning the writing of “The World Crisis”, he obtained a set of German casualty statistics from the British Embassy in Berlin via the Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon. Churchill returned to the topic in 1923, by which time he had decided to write a third volume, and wrote to Edmonds to inform him that he had obtained more detailed figures from Berlin (29/8/23) Edmonds replied that the German figures did not included lightly wounded (14/10/26) Edmonds appears to have supplied Churchill with figures from German VII Corps, suggesting that 40% needed to be added to German figures to account for lightly wounded men. Churchill replied that if this were so it would destroy the ration of two wounded to one dead which he had found to be constant across the British, French and German armies.(15/10/26) Sadly the British and German figures contain a lot of “missing”; the version of these figures which Churchill used, in which these were allocated to dead and missing, does not appear to have survived, nor does Edmonds appear to have replied to Churchill’s (british 1:4.5, german 1:3.9, but missing make up 25% of total german casualties and 11% of british; clearly – in Prior’s view - more German missing need to be allocated to their killed than in british figures, which he reckons would even up the killed: wounded ratios – that makes no sense) . Churchill wrote to Hume, who had worked on the matter while attached to the British Embassy in Berlin, and who replied that in his opinion the German figures included lightly wounded. (21/10, 9/11/26) Edmonds then wrote to Churchill stating that it was “notorious” that German figures did not include the lightly-wounded, but that he had “never troubled” to research the matter further (18/11/26). Churchill then wrote to Hume again (12/11/26) and Hume replied with a letter from Herr Stinger of the Reicharchiv, who firmly denied that lightly wounded had been excluded, and also insisted that sick and wounded who later died had been reallocated to the figures for deaths. On being asked again to verify Churchill’s figures, Stinger replied that they were as good as were likely to be obtained.(27/11/26)
p223 Churchill argued that British casualties never less than 3:2 and sometimes as much as 2:1, and that these offensives therefore weakened the Allies more than they weakened the Germans, whose losses, Churchill argued, were less than the annual intake of men into the German Army.
p223-4 in the official history Edmonds wrote that 30% needed to be added to the German totals to account for the lightly wounded. (vol I pp496-7) Eventually Edmonds pointed to a quote from Vol XII of the German Official History, which mentioned that Germany had lost “a round figure” of 1.4m men in 1916, of which 800,000 were between July and October, including “great losses” in the summer, but not including “the wounded whose recovery was to be expected within a reasonable time” MJ Williams ("Treatment of the German losses on the Somme in the British Official History RUSI Journal Feb 1966) pointed out that this passage is in the context of a discussion about Germany’s reinforcement position, not a general statement that lightly wounded men were omitted from casualty figures in Der Weltkrieg. Also, in an earlier article Williams attacked the 30% number ("Thirty Per Cent: A Study in Casualty Statistics" RUSI Feb 1964) Edmonds had written that Reicharchiv figures were “net” of lightly wounded and Nachweiseamt figures “gross”, i.e. including lightly wounded. For Verdun Edmonds compares Churchill’s figure of 426,519 with the German historian Wendt’s figure of 336,831, to derive a 33% increase, and by what Prior calls “a similar process of mental and arithmetic gymnastics” to derive a 27% figure for the Somme “Entirely fallacious”. In fact Churchill had used Reicharchiv figures and his figure was therefore also “net”, although calculated over a different time period and is for the whole western front (Churchill argued that 1/8 should be knocked off to account for losses elsewhere on quieter sectors of the front).
224-5 Oman was employed on German casualty calculations during the war. He argued from the German Verlustliste that German casualties were 420,000 for the period July-late October. To this he added 60,000 for the period up to the end of November and a further 50,000 for losses amongst engineers artillery, etc. to give a total of 530,000. However, Williams points out that Oman was using total casualty figures reported by the relevant German units throughout the period, using lists which were often four or five weeks old. As many of these units had rotated through the Somme sector, Oman had overstated German Somme casualties by including losses which had not been sustained in that battle. (Williams p.70) 225 terraine argues that 20-30% should be added to German casualty figures, but produces “no new evidence” as to why this should be so. ("The Road to Passchendaele: A Study in Inevitability" 1977 p.344, 347)
225-8 Terraine also deserves credit for pointing out that two different versions of the British figures exist (from “Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire”), however these discrepancies are almost entirely explained by differences in cut-off dates between time periods, with the total differences in the data series being no more than 6.5%. the same is also true of british annual meducal statistics (1931) and the Annual reports of the british army, provided the latter is adjusted upwards to include colonial casualties. although the medical statistics differ from churchll’s numbers by almost 10% in any given year, the grand totals are much the same, suggesting that churchill’s figures are broadly reliable.
228-9 churchill said 1/8 needs to be knocked off for quiet sectors, in fact more like 1/10 for british. (Military Effort p.362). Churchill’s figures broadly accurate and show allied losses clearly exceed german for most of war, although Churchill doesn’t mention nearer parity in 1918.
229 “a “blood test” is a very crude way of comparing the ability of modern states to wage war”. germans suffered attrition of transport, with production of railway machinery declining almost 100% between 1914 and 1918. by the end of the war bladst furnaces often empty as they could not be kept supplied with coal, and industria; production had dropped by ¼ during the war. civilian workforce dropped by 4m duruing war, with consumer goods production dropping to 50-60% of rewar levels by 1918 75% of gold reserves and almost all holdings foreign securities gone. economic and military collapse interrelated.
229-30 although all four of them were trying to peddle a case, churchill, supposedly an amateur historian, handled statistics very much more accurately than his critics Edmonds, oman or terraine.
p258 the sections on 1917 and 1918 consist mainly of maps and diagrams, and extensive quotations from memoranda by Churchill himself, which are, in Robin Prior’s view, less interesting than those from 1914-15 as, although he was once again in ministerial office, he was no longer in the Cabinet or at the centre of strategic decision-making.
pp258-9 Beaverbrook read an early draft and wrote to Churchill (23 Nov 1926) complaining of the poor coverage of domestic politics and lack of recognition of Lloyd George’s important role. Churchill added a chapter called “A political Interlude” discussing the troubles of the Asquith government over the introduction of conscription, the important role of the wartime press and the fall of Asquith’s government in December 1916, and an appreciation of Lloyd George’s political talents. He praised Lloyd George’s ability to extract good results from a crisis, e.g. bringing in convoys in response to the U-Boat crisis in spring 1917, setting up the Supreme War Council in response to the disaster at Caporetto, or the unified Allied command in response to the near-defeat of March 1918. This passage was largely inspired by a draft sent to Churchill by Maurice Hankey (8 December 1926).
pp259-60 Churchill refused to tone down his criticism of Lloyd George any further, writing to Beaverbrook (30 November) that he was critical of Lloyd George for his dalliance with Nivelle’s scheme to place the British Army under French command, for his chopping and changing about whether to support western front offensives in 1917 (offensives to which Churchill had, he claimed, been consistently opposed), and for his (supposed) refusal to send extra reinforcements to the western front (Need FN). However, he conceded that “there is no doubt that he was much better as No. 1 than anybody else. The same may be said of Haig. The truth is that Armageddon was quite beyond the compass of anybody, even you and me.”
p260 Churchill was less likely, in Prior’s view, to remove criticism of Lloyd George in 1926 (when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lloyd George in opposition) than he had been in the earlier volumes which had been written in the early 1920s when Churchill had been serving in Lloyd George’s Cabinet.
p261 Had Henry Wilson been alive he might well have been willing to vet the military chapters for Churchill, in the same way that Roger Keyes had the naval chapters. As Minister of Munitions Churchill had achieved good relations with Haig, who had been impressed by Churchill’s efforts in rushing armaments to France after the German Spring Offensives (Haig diary 27 April 1918). Haig gave Churchill permission to quote from private conversations.
p262 Haig wrote (13 March 1927) “In order to enjoy reading your writings it is not, I find, necessary to agree with all (italics) the opinions which you express”.
p263 Churchill wrote to Beaverbrook (23 November 1926), who had written (22 Nov 1926) to accuse Churchill of “hedging” his views of Haig and Jellicoe, leaving the future reader to “read between the lines”. “There is no doubt that both Jellicoe and Haig were absolutely at the top of their professions from every point of view; and apart from the erroneous doctrines which led one to fight as little, and the other as much, as possible, they played worthy parts and rendered great services and bore a noteworthy share in the eventual success … I do not seek to condemn individuals … As a matter of fact my subsequent study of the war has led me to think a good deal better of Haig than I did at the time. It is absolutely certain there was no one who could have taken his place.”
p.263 Churchill’s treatment of Haig is, in Prior’s view, much fairer than his treatment of Jellicoe.
pp263-5 the amendments made by Churchill at Haig’s request referred to relations with the French, to whose reasonable requests Haig was willing to agree provided the independence of the British Army was maintained, e.g. over the Nivelle Affair in early 1918 or the bickering with Foch about the .
p265 Haig’s willingness to redeploy ???XI Corps to French sector in July 1918
p266 Haig’s willingness to “renew the attack” after the battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918, Haig brought in Byng’s Third Army on Rawlinson’s left contrary to Foch’s orders for the 21 August battle and later Horne’s First Army. Haig conceded that Foch “got the best out of the French Troops & without Foch they would have given in”
p267-8 Churchill initially included a passage from Boraston’s account (Vol2 p.17) stating that Haig had adopted a defensive posture in the west because his divisions were under-strength. At Haig’s request (Haig claimed Boraston did not speak for him), Churchill toned down this passage, implied weakness of British Army was partly the fault of the government (need FN) and partly Haig’s fault for squandering British manpower at Passchendaele. In fact Boraston was right and Haig (diary 7 January) had wanted to renew the Ypres Offensive early in 1918.
p267-8 Churchill was initially critical of Haig for prolonging the Arras Offensive unnecessarily, but amended the passage to claim that Haig, who would have preferred to close down these operations to prepare for the Third Ypres Offensive, had kept them going out of concern for the state of morale in the French Army and in Paris.
p269 Churchill rewrote the passage about the Allied Reserve in the winter of 1917-18, arguing that if Foch had had thirty divisions under his command he could have done more to rescue Gough’s Fifth Army, but that he simply did not have enough divisions to spare.
p269-70 Edmonds played a lesser role but supplied Churchill with document relating to the British Intelligence about the German withdrawal in March 1917, German Operational Orders in March 1918, “good fights” on 21 March 1918 (the first day of “Michael”), the Doullens Conference, the Lys Offensive and the French advance from August to November 1918.
p270 little discussion of Passchendaele, and it is unclear why, especially given that, in Prior’s view, like the Somme it was questionable whether it was any kind of attritional success, Prior suggests that Churchill may have been reluctant to criticise “Lloyd George’s vacillating policy towards the attack and its continuation”.
p270-1 Churchill also omitted a suggestion that there should have been a seaborne invasion of Borkum or Sylt, islands off the German North Sea Coast, and a policy which Churchill had in fact considered in 1914-15. He omitted this after advice from Admiral Keyes that the Admiralty had rejected the scheme. in 1917.
p279 “The Dardanelles chapters of “The World Crisis” certainly prove, if proof was needed, that it is quite possible to base a narrative on an enormous number of documents and still produce a misleading account.” Up to 40% of the Dardanelles sections consists of memoranda and letters “an adept process of selection” his own documents not critically analysed and with key sections often deleted.
p318 haig’s only condition was that 100 extra copies by printed for him (?WSC or DH) to autograph to raise money for ex servicemen.
p281-2 Prior suspicious that Churchill’s selective and misleading use of documents may extend to other parts of the “The World Crisis”. Also critical of his habit of removing or editing material to please other collaborators, although he generally, with the exception of his analysis of the possible effects of a British victory at Jutland, only accepted advice which accorded with his own ideas (e.g. he accepted Haig’s advice over operations in 1917 and 1918, but did not (phrase carefully) over the Battle of the Somme.
p282 Churchill’s attempts to find other venues of war should in part be seen as Churchill’s disillusionment with the way war had not accorded with his romantic preconceptions. “although he confessed to finding war exciting he never lost his humanity or forgot what the cost of the war was” “a thread of humanity … which is so noticeably absent from the works of some of Churchill’s colleagues, such as Grey and Asquith” “Despite its errors and misstatements it does possess breadth of vision to a degree quite unusual in a work of this type” “the power and stately nature of the writing, and the lucidity with which Churchill is able to discuss often quite complicated events.”
colonel the lord Sydenham of coombe, admiral sir reginald bacon, general sir Frederick Maurice, general sir w d bird sir Charles oman, kennikat press, port wshington ny/London (1970, reprint of 1928) ISBN 0-8046-1041-x Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: invalid character Oman worked for intelligence casualty calculations during the war.
p40 “every student has a right to his own opinion” as to “the relative importance of the Eastern and Western Fronts” “technical matters of naval tactics, on which only naval men have a right to criticise one another’s views”
p41-2 churchill puts german losses at 236,194, which Oman argues is “less than half of the total German loss upon the Somme” (in fact Churchill’s figure refers only to German losses inflicted by the British).
p42 total german losses slightly exceeded those of the allies, with units suffering up to 70% losses in some cases.
pp42-3 churchill compares 8th division lost 5,500 all ranks on day 1 to german 180th regiment which lost only 300 officers and men that day. oman argues that 180th regiment “clearly had exceptional luck” compared to 111the reserve infantry regimnt, which suffered 1850 casualties out of 2700.
pp43-4 oman also criticises churchill for discussing how the Germans lost four times as many commissioned officers as the British on the Somme. Although Churchill acknowledges in a footnote that a German unit had fewer officers than a comparably-sized British unit, he does not mention that in fact a German unit had only half as many, with German platoons, even by 1916, frequently being commanded by NCOs
pp44-5 by time of somme a german corps had 18 infantry battalions, not thev 24 from start of war. jaeger battalions taken away every early in the war. One 3-battalion regiment had been deducted from most brigades to make the new “reconstituted divisions”, each of which had only 3 regiments (9 battalions). so by the time of the somme a corps was usually around 18,000 a division 9,000 and some weaker still. pp45-8 the german defenders on 1 july consisted of 13 divisions, with another 6 brought in on or before 5 july. These divisions suffered a total of 83,872 casualties in the course of the battle, a loss rate comparable to those of the british divisions, whilst divisions which arrived in the line in july and august also experienced similar loss rates – at least 35% or 40% and in some cases more. In total around 100 German divisions were rotated through the Battle of Somme, some several times, before in many cases being sent to recuperate on quieter sectors of the western or eastern front.
pp49-50 although german verlustliste (lists of casualties) appeared almost daily, any individual regiment might only submit a report every few weeks, and regimental losses were listed in order of the number of the regiment rather than by sector, making it hard for British Intelligence to keep track of German losses per battle.
pp51-3 by the end of November German acknowledged losses on the Somme sector had reached 420,000, with casualties often being reported four or five weeks in arrears (i.e. the figure of 420,000 does not include losses in late October and November). From 6 December onwards the German authorities ceased to report total casualties per regiment – Oman claimed that it is “obvious” that this was because the total casualties were “too ghastly” and too much useful information was being made available to Allied intelligence. From 6 December only alphabetical lists of individual casualties were published. Oman argues that an extra 60,000 German casualties need to be added for late October and November, and a “moderate” estimate of 50,000 for losses in artillery, engineers, sappers, pioneers, labourers and other support units, bringing total German losses in the Battle of Somme up from 420,000 to 530,000.
p53-4 reichsarchiv put total Somme losses at 436,651, of which 164,055 killed or missing and 272,596. Oman argues that the 83,655 prisoners need to be deducted from the missing, leaving 80,400 deaths. This suggests that 3.4:1 ratio of wounded to dead. British ratio was 4.5:1 and 5:1 for the Americans. German wounded probably more like 360,000, bringing total up to around 525,000, a very similar number to Oman’s own estimate.
p55- Churchill argues 463,000 total British casualties, need to deduct “arbitrary” says Oman 53,000 for wastage to get to 410,000. Oman argues that Churchill underestimated wastage on quiet sectors Oman put total British casualties at 342,662 and French at 146,672, for a total of 489,334, i.e. less than the German loss.
pp56-7 churchill argues no more than 18 German divisions rotated through by end August as intelligence were overestimating based on counting elements of individual divisions which had been spotted; Oman argues 36 “complete divisional units” by 1 aug, 45 by 31 aug, 97 by end nov, 38 of them twice.
p59 cost the germans 500,000 of their best troops, “effectively prevented” any further major offensive by them for a long time.
xxxxxx
- Naval battles of the First World War. New York: Scribner. 1969. OCLC 218534.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
p239 balfour communique written hurriedly to contradict scheer’s immediate claim of victory. acknowledged heavy losses among british battlecruisers but did not yet know of severe damage sustained by german battleships.
p239 older officers resented beatty for is panache and his rapid promotion, while press praised beatty and blamed Jellicoe for allowing high seas fleet to escape. beatty continued to hold high office whereas Jellicoe out of favour from end 1917.
p240 as early as july 1940 beatty had a dispute when Beatty had attempted to demand amendations to Jellicoe’s despatch before it was released
p240 on learning that Jellicoe planned to write his own account of his time in office (scheer also produced an account at a similar time, “germany’s High Seas Fleet in the World War”) 1919-20, first sea lord admiralwemyss appointed a small committee under captain j e t harper to write an official account, including diagrams, to recobcile reports of admirals and captains, ships’ logs and track charts. had wreck of invincible located to reconcile iron duke and lion navigational reports. Harper had intended to ensure the neutrality of his report by not showing it either to Jellicoe or Beatty before publication, but by the time it was completed in October 1919 Beatty became First Sea Lord and was able to insist on amendations and adding a foreword. harper contested some of the amendations and insisted that a note be inserted disclaiming his responsibility. Jellicoe asked to see the work and was strongly critical of beatty’s amendments and foreword. Using the excuse that publication might harm sales of the “Official History”, the Admiralty agreed to postpone publication of Harper’s “Record” indefinitely.
pp240-1 dec 1920 wemyss wrote to “the times” regretting non puvb;lication ogf harper’s record an the same month the jutland dispatches were published, described as “a vast mass of undigested facts from which the layman cannot possibly disentangle the true histry of this great sea fight”, contributed to impression admiralty had something to hide.
p241 “official history:naval operations, volume iii” by sir Julian Corbett appeared in 1923. had no access to any detailed german account and was not permited to disclose the signals deciphered by room 40. he was allowed to use the harper record and a secret “naval staff appreciation of jutland”, brothers captain kgb and commander ac dewar, so crtical of many aspects of british operation thatr dmiralty ordered it destroyed, at least to copies survived.
p241 admiralty issued “Narrative of the Battle of Jutland” “worse than biased in Beatty’s favour” jellicoe’s many objections were relegted to an appendix, dissenting footnotes and “where the appendix differs friom the narrative, their Lordships are satisfied that the narrative is more in accordance with the evidence available”
p241 german official history Der Krieg zur See claimed german victory, somewhat critical of beatty, “The World Crisis”, Bacon “The Jutland scandal” Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon pro-Jellicoe, threatened with legal action by supporters of Beatty whom he had criticised. p241 1927 madden (Jellicoe cos at jutland) succeeded beatty as first sea lord, ordered publication of harper’s record to dispel idea that any great mystery within. Diagrams omitted to save money. same year harper now retired published “The Truth about Jutland”
p241-2 revised edition of corbett’s official history published in 1940, taking account of the German Official History and of signal intelligence from Room 40, which had not been passed on to Jellicoe at the time nor disclosed afterwards, that Scheer was returning to port via the Horn Reefs (where it would have been dangerous for Jellicoe to pursue him). Although this, and the German Official History, largely vindicated Jellicoe’s reputation, it attracted little public interest as the Second Warold War was underway by then and most of the copies were destroyed in a bombing raid, leaving only a few copies sent out to reviewers in existence.
p242 harper documents under seal to royal united services institution, along with his “subjective and somewhat embittered” account. beatty tried to conceal battlecruisers poor gunnery by “manipulating” the account of the run north (1700-1800) to the disadvantage of 5th BS, magnified small part played by battlecruisers in repulsing scheer’s attempt to fight his way through grand fleet (1800-1850). hms lion involuntary 360 turn owing to compass failure, away from bridge at time examining damage, but insisted he ordered 90 degrees to starboard, became involuntary 180 degrees to starboard corrected by 180 degrees to port, should have been 90 degrees to port to correct. Jellicoe objected to beatty’s foreword in which he claimed to have fought off Hipper with an inferior force (ignoring the presence of the 5th Battle Squadron, the most powerful warships in the world at the time), that Jellicoe had been slow to come to his aid, and that even once engaged the Grand Fleet had played little part in the battle.
pp242-3 Bennett argues that these attempts to show himself in a better light, although somewhat discreditable to Beatty, were no worse than behaviour by Nelson and other famous people, and should not detract unduly from Beatty’s achievements as an admiral.
Massie – Castles of Steel
p 664 Kitchener, still a popular hero, drowned when HMS Hampshire was sunk off the Orkneys on 6 June 1916. Coming so soon after the disappointing results of Jutland, this seemed to reflect poorly on the Grand Fleet, Jellicoe writing to Jackson “I feel in a measure responsible as I ordered her movements. My luck is dead out for the present I’m afraid”
pp668-9 Massie points out that the Napoleonic Wars had continued for ten years after Trafalgar, although he argues that a major sea victory might have released troops from the UK, allowing them to be deployed to other theatres, and that such a victory might have allowed the Royal Navy to operate into the Baltic, tighten the blockade of Germany by preventing imports of Swedish iron ore, and perhaps even sending supplied to Russia or even, although this would have been a more risky proposition, conducting amphibious landings on the Baltic coast.
p669 Massie argues that Beatty had clearly been “defeated” by Hipper in the battlecruiser action but his status as a dashing press hero meant that pundits tried to make Jellicoe a scapegoat instead.
p670 On his way to the Admiralty to report, Jellicoe visited Beatty on board HMS Lion and – or so Beatty claimed – put his head in his hands and declared “I missed one of the greatest opportunities a man ever had”. Beatty was publicly supportive but privately, and in front of subordinates, critical of Jellicoe for, as he saw it, leaving him to fight the German fleet alone. Some of Jellicoe’s supporters, by contrast, thought Beatty “Arrogant” and “slipshod” and believed he had hoped to win a victory on his own with as little help from battleships as possible.
p671 Ethel Beatty wrote to a friend that Jellicoe had been “frightened to death” and “in a deadly funk”. Admiral of the Fleet Hedworth Meux wrote to the King’s Private Secretary criticising Jellicoe, and stating that Jellicoe would have deserved an Earldom if he had won a major victory; it is thought that this cost Jellicoe promotion.
p673 Scheer did not defeat Jellicoe, contrary to German claims at the time, “but there is no doubt Hipper defeated Beatty”
p674 Beatty lost touch with the High Seas Fleet on his “Run to the North”, although he did at least lead them into the path of the Grand Fleet.
p676 Jellicoe tried to accommodate Beatty’s demand that parts of his report to Jellicoe and the Admiralty be published. Beatty was concerned lest he become the object of public criticism, but Jellicoe privately wished the Admiralty would veto Beatty’s demand. At the peace Jellicoe got 50k and not an earl until 1924, Beatty got 100k.
p677 Arthur Hungerford Pollen published “The Navy in Battle” in November 1918, two weeks after the Armistice. The book, highly critical of Jellicoe, was full of inaccuracies, wrongly asserting that Beatty had kept Jellicoe fully informed about the position of the German fleet. In 1919 Carlyon Bellairs MP published another account of similar tone, describing Jellicoe as “a man of tearful yesterdays and fearful tomorrows” and containing chapter headings such as “The Grand Fleet nibbles but does not bite”, “I came, I saw, I turned away” and “Eleven Destroyers defeat Twenty-Four Battleships”
p678 Ralph Seymour (“Flags”) fell from favour as criticism of Beatty’s signalling spread, and when he attempted to marry Ethel Beatty’s niece Gwendolyn Field. He committed suicide on 7 October 1922, aged
36. In July 1923 Jellicoe described the account to friends as “a Battlecruiser Fleet account looked at through BCF eyes” and “the work of a lunatic”. He submitted 20 pages of objections, many of them sticking up for Evan-Thomas, and threatening to resign from his post and return home from New Zealand.
p679 Bacon wrote “The Jutland Scandal” and Harper wrote “The Truth About Jutland” which criticised Beatty for his handling of Evan-Thomas and his poor signals to Jellicoe.
p680 Jellicoe normally maintained a dignified public silence about the controversy, but at a naval seminar years later he stated that Beatty had not sent him any signal informing him of the whereabouts of the German fleet between 16.45 and 18.06, the latter only being sent in response to urgent requests for information.
Gordon – Rules of the Game
504 Kitchener’s death led to all kinds of wild rumours of assassination, spies and saboteurs. Jellicoe commented at this time that his job was probably too much for anybody over the age of 55.
680 although it is normal nowadays for senior officers to retire in their mid-50s, Somerville, cunningham late 50s, ramsay early 60s; in previous eras kempenfelt, Rodney, howe, hood, Duncan jervis all won great victories in their sixties. More mental than chronological in jellicoe’s case. Beatty thought Jellicoe “always a half-hearted man”
509 b slagged off Jellicoe for half an hour in front of commander Hubert dannreuther, senior survivor of hms invincible.
510-1 beatty complained that editing of dogger bank report made him look “a rotter of the worst description … ought to have been shot with the shade of byng standing by as a witness” “It is hard enough to lose my fine ships and gallant pals, but to be told that I am (a) hare-brained maniac is not quite my idea of british fairness and justice” tried to have diagrams altered, Jellicoe thought admiralty should have stopped publication, and that term battle cruiser “fleet” was giving beatty an inflated sense of his own importance. In June 1916 the Admiralty supported Jellicoe in blocking Beatty’s wish to have the 5th Battle Squadron permanently placed under his command, on the grounds that it was not quite fast enough to operate independently of the main fleet.
512 in summer 1916 beatty was preparing master track charts minimising the role of 5th bs.
520-1 Jellicoe wanted Madden, his brother-in-law and the most junior of the five vice-admirals, as his successor (he distrusted Sturdee, the other likely candidate, almost as much as he distrusted Beatty). Balfour appointed Beatty as acting admiral and downgraded BCF to battle cruiser force. Jellicoe told Beatty “The press will get me now and I am finished” and told Evan-Thomas that leaving the Grand Fleet hurt him as much as if he were leaving his own children.
521, 523 Jellicoe was regarded with great affection by the men of the Grand Fleet, with officers recorded men openly crying as they watched his barge sail away; by contrast an order to “cheer ship” had to be given by Admiral Burney, second-in-command, to welcome Beatty. duffel coat, excuse me, order to clear a path for Beatty and escort of armed royal marines.
524-5 Beatty transferred flag to “Big Lizzie” which he had coveted as far back as autumn 1914.
530 Madden beard mistaken for King George V when King came to hand out awards in june 1917 (parcelled out to various ships because teetotal), Beatty gcvo, Evan-Thomas knighted with Beatty’s sword.
531 Beatty’s showmanship kept up the morale of the Grand Fleet – often making speeches promising to “annihilate” the Germans if they ventured forth again.
534 at the end of war Beatty called for Germany to be harshly treated and predicted, correctly in both cases, that there would be another war with Germany in twenty years, and that Japan would be on the German side next time.
538 Beatty was keen to be promoted to the job of First Sea Lord and complained to Wemyss, the current holder of the position and widely seen as a stopgap appointment, that he was not receiving the “consideration … due to an officer in (his) position … kept “backing and filling” indefinitely to suit (his) convenience” (1 March 1919) . In fact the Government deliberately kept Wemyss on so that his diplomatic skills could be used during the Peace Conference 3/4/19 beatty youngest admiral of the fleet in history Grand Fleet dispersed four days later, leaving Beatty “unemployed” The Northcliffe Press, very likely with Beatty’s connivance, were campaigning openly for him to be promoted into Wemyss’ job. By 14 June Walter Long was writing to the King’s Private Secretary that Beatty was behaving “very foolishly” and damaging his chances of becoming First Sea Lord.
539 In August 1919 Beatty was elevated to an earldom; Jellicoe was still only a viscount (of “Scapa Flow”
684 although Beatty’s title (“Earl Beatty of the North Sea”) sounded better, owing to shortage of fuel in 1917, better security of British harbours, and better intelligence of German movements (and reluctance to engage in battle) Beatty had in fact put to sea rather less often that Jellicoe.
539 captain john harper director of navigation at admiralty. sent out minesweeper Oakley to locate invincible so beatty and jellicoe’s reports coulfd be reconciled. report ready October 1919.
540 harper critical of beatty’s failure to jeep Jellicoe informed, his failure to defeat an inferior enemy, and the poor gunnery of his battlecruisers Beatty’s disciple Commander Seymour wrote to Harper “We do not wish to advertise the fact that the Battle Fleet was in action, more than we can help”. (18 December 1919)
540-1 andrew Gordon writes of beatty’s “pettiness” in claiming to have engaged the germans more closely than he actually did at 1745, and hms lion’s cicle or s-bend at 1900 (Gordon says whole bcf did this), beatty forged track chart and his pre-enobklement signature.
685 rudolph Bentinck, beatty’s chief of staff at jutland abd who according to chatfield’s memoirs took over the con on hms lion at the time, a fact of which harper was probably not awae at the time, “strongly” advised harper to stick to his guns (6 august 1920)
541 harper was attacked by commander carlyon bellairs mp in the preface to “The Battle of Jutland, the Sowing and the Reaping”, falsely insinuating that harper had no combat experience. Jellicoe and Harper were also attacked in the Northcliffe Press (Daily Mail, February 1920). Jellicoe claimed not to read the “Daily Mail” and declined to make public reply, privately sneering at former officers who wrote “articles for money”.
542 Walter Long dissuaded Harper from suing Bellairs for libel, and eventually gave a pledge in Parliament (4 August 1920) that Jellicoe would be permitted to see the final product before publication (he had previously promised Jellicoe that he would be permitted to make amendments)
542 harper may have had a breakdown in the summer of 1920
542-4 Seymour fell from grace November 1920, had a breakdown in May 1921, was invalided out of the Royal Navy in September 1922 and committed suicide at Brighton on 4 October 1922, diving off a cliff in front of a passer-by a few days before Beatty was due to visit the town. It was not uncommon in the 1920s for demobbed officers to commit suicide, and Seymour’s demise was blamed on the deep defence cuts of the era. Seymour’s family blamed Beatty for his death.
545-6 dewars completed in September 1921; their report was, in Roskill’s words full of “far-reaching and astringent criticism of Jellicoe”. Corbett wrote to Jellicoe in July 1922 that he had found the Dewars’ account “grotesque” and had urged that it not be published (Jellicoe later misremembered this as having been about the later Admiralty Narrative).
546 Jellicoe spent the period March-November 1922 writing his critiqueof the Admiralty Narrative (which he incorrectly called the Staff Appreciation), writing of the “distortion of facts” with which Evan-Thomas was being criticised
547 Corbett died in September 1922; Leo Amery less sympathetic to Jellicoe and less willing to stand up to Beatty than Walter Long had been. In July 1923 Jellicoe had to threaten to resign and come home from New Zealand to publish his own account.
547-8 Admiralty inserted a disclaimer into Corbett’s Vol III, stating that they disapproved of his downplaying the importance of seeking battle
548 “Naval Officers of the Great War” appeared in 1921, Jellicoe shown seated at side, studying reports and looking worried; Beatty shown as a commanding figure at centre stage.
549 Evan-Thomas was criticised for signalling confusions between the 5BS and BCF.
550 Evan-Thomas booked a meeting with Leo Amery for 3 December 1923, but was “bundled out of the room” by Beatty.
552 Admiralty Narrative appeared June 1924
554-6 Although Churchill’s World Crisis, published early in 1927, attempted to be fair to Jellicoe, it was a strongly pro-Beatty account, blaming Evan-Thomas for the confusions of his interactions with the BCF. Evan-Thomas wrote to “The Times” (16 February 1927) “a mixture of armchair criticism, want of vision from sailor’s point of view, an utter disregard of the effect of smoke, gunfire and fog added to a terribly partisan account”. An editorial in “Truth” attacked “Beatty’s blunder at Jutland” in engaging without ensuring the support of 5BS, and Harper wrote a long article in the “Morning Post” attacking Beatty (4 March 1927)
557-8 A question by Carlyon Bellairs MP on 15 March 1927. Sir William Bridgeman claimed that Barham had indeed received a signal from Lion to change course c1435, and had passed that signal on to her accompanying destroyers. Evan-Thomas believed that the logs had been (maliciously) falsified, although Andrew Gordon suggests that they may have been (honestly) fudged when written up after the battle. Other records, the “fair signal logs” had been destroyed.
559 Andrew Gordon suggests that Jellicoe, out of the loop on the other side of the world, may have fallen victim to paranoia. His “The Grand Fleet 1914-16: its Creation, Development and Work” was “an insipid apologia”. He is highly critical of Beatty’s pettiness in, say, getting worked up over whether HMS Lion turned a circle or an S-Bend at one point late in the battle. Had Beatty simply allowed the Harper Report to be published in 1919 or 1920 the Controversy would never had got so far out of hand. "Powerful and effective First Sea Lord though Beatty was, he lacked some of the skills of kingship".
Lambert
337 –“ the first modern admiral. His career was advanced by good fortune, publicity and money; his reputation reflected an image rather than reality; his victories only existed in the pages of wartime newspapers … yet his eight-year term as First Sea Lord … transcended anything he had achieved at sea”. second of four sons, dad captain 4th hussars regarded himself as “essentially Irish”
338 passed out of Dartmouth halfway down list jan 1886. posted to china station . mother appealed to lord Charles Beresford 4sl, got him posted to flagship med fleet. hms Alexandra hrh duke of Edinburgh, made lots of connections. joined ruby corvette may 1889, then 18 months at rnc Greenwich and gunnery training ship hms excellent at Portsmouth.
339 first class marks only in torpedoes. beatty remained a non-specialist. rn beginning to expand after 1889 navy act. 1892 summer cruise on royal yacht “Victoria & Albert”. lieutenant 25/8/92. another tour on hms ruby in west indies, south atlantic. 10/93 joined battleship camperdown in med. joined Trafalgar 1895.
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