THE VERSAILLES COUNCIL
“Besides, he says, there are two councils held;
And that may be determined at the one
Which may make him and you to rue at the other.”
SHAKESPEARE’S _Richard III_, Act III, Sc. ii.
ITALY was saved for the time; but if it was to be saved for all time,
and if other dangers were to be averted, it was not enough to pass
resolutions at Allied Conferences. The proceedings at Rapallo must be
followed up by more effective action.
Mr. Lloyd George has always the instinct in his heart that no public
purpose can be thoroughly achieved without the help of the peoples
concerned. He is above all things a “crowd-compeller.” It was now his
imperious instinct that he should appeal from a secret conference to the
great peoples of Western Europe. It was his powerful conviction that he
must take them into his counsel as to the reasons for a new
centralisation of war-control—in short, that he must appeal over the
heads of the Governments to the nations.
If the new Versailles Council was to be anything more than an Aulic
assembly, forcibly-feeble, strenuously impotent, it was necessary to
rally behind it all the great democratic forces of the Western world. It
was urgent to give it a new authority derived directly from the peoples.
If this was to be achieved the peoples must be given a franker
explanation of the strategy of the war, of the reasons for failure, and
the motives for a new policy.
These are the reasons why, quite deliberately, on the way home from
Rapallo, on November 12th, 1917, Mr. Lloyd George made that remarkable
speech at Paris which was perhaps the frankest utterance of the
war.[112]
This Paris speech fluttered all the dovecots of Europe, and some of the
eagles’ nests as well. It seemed to come as a caprice, a child of sudden
impulse, from the brain of the British Premier. And yet the speech was
most carefully prepared; a copy of it was sent to the War Cabinet in
time for correction in case of need; it was handed over for
interpretation before being uttered.[113]
There was nothing sudden about it. For the speech represented the slowly
matured results of two years of observation, the fruits of prolonged
meditation on the events of the war.
The step towards unity which was the central point of the speech
represented his profoundest conviction on the strategy of the war.
Ever since the beginning of the war, indeed, Mr. Lloyd George had been
an international as well as a patriot. As in the war itself, so in the
Alliances, he was always against half-measures. If we were to be true
Allies of France and Russia—or later on of Italy and the United
States—then we must always work with them hand in hand, take close
counsel with them as friends, act always together, not as separate
States but as parts of one common organisation; the real beginning of a
new “League of Nations.” From the very outset he had no use for national
sectarianism; he could not understand the idea of a tepid alliance, a
Laodicean friendship, timorous of mutual help, suspicious of common
counsel, feeble in reciprocal aid.
His reading of history had taught him that this kind of suspicion,
especially strong in island countries, had been the sleeping sickness,
the wasting paralysis, of all former mixed European Alliances. It was
just this same aloofness, this same separatist pursuit of national aims,
that robbed Marlborough of the fruits of his victories. It was precisely
the same want of common planning that melted all Pitt’s alliances like
wax before the fire of Napoleon’s energy. In more recent days, it was
the similar want of understanding between the British and French
Generals that prolonged the Crimean War.
Now he determined to strike while the iron was white hot. The fire
burned, and he spake with his tongue. While the events in Italy were
still fresh in the memory of Europe he pointed the lesson in vivid and
biting language. It was certainly the first time that such a speech had
been uttered at such a half-private function—an official luncheon of
the Premiers arranged to give him an interval of relaxation in his
journey back to England. No wonder the orthodox were alarmed.
Frankly and roughly, like a man in a hurry who has no time for honeyed
speech, Mr. Lloyd George gave to the world his own innermost reasons for
pressing forward the machinery of central control.
For the Versailles Council was to be a real and not a shadow control. He
made it clear that he intended it to possess a genuine authority over
the national military staffs. Even so, his proposals did not go so far
as America and France desired; for France already wished for a
Generalissimo, and the United States, being too far from the war even to
aim at exercising control, were frankly willing to delegate the entire
military power to the men on the spot.
But, even so, Mr. Lloyd George’s plan contained the heart of the matter.
Every one engaged in the controversy was aware that, once the germ of
unified control was established, it would grow. No local control could
compete with it. On that main principle Mr. Lloyd George was quite clear
and definite. He stated outright that he would not stay in office unless
his plan was adopted. “Personally,” he said, referring to the Rapallo
decision, “I had made up my mind that, unless some change were effected,
I could no longer remain responsible for a war direction doomed to
disaster for the lack of unity.”
Mr. Lloyd George was far too old a bird to have any doubt as to what
troubles this speech would bring on his head. He was speaking, as he
himself said, “with perhaps brutal frankness at the risk of
misconception here and elsewhere,”—perhaps even, he admitted, at the
risk of encouraging the enemy.
He knew all that. But he also knew that there are times when such risks
have to be taken. There are moments when an electric shock is necessary
if men are to be really aroused to the duty of change. Eyesight, they
say, is sometimes restored by a flash of sudden light. The same method
may remove blindness of other kinds.
The new Council, he said, had already started work. It must have the
support of public opinion if it was to have any genuine power. There
must be a new central strength to resist sectional and national
influences. What they wanted for victory was not sham unity, but
real.[114]
The Paris speech was followed by an outcry even greater perhaps than Mr.
Lloyd George had expected. The clamours of offended tradition and
convention filled the air of London, especially of the London clubs. The
uproar lasted for a full week, and then it found voice in the House of
Commons, where Mr. Lloyd George was subjected to a kind of impeachment
by Mr. Asquith and the Opposition leaders.
“This animal is wicked,” wrote the French fabulist; “it defends itself.”
Such seems to be the feeling behind much of the fury provoked by Mr.
Lloyd George on such occasions. Such events must be taken with
tranquillity. The mutual play of criticism and defence goes to form the
strength of our public life, and Mr. Lloyd George is the last man to
appeal for mercy. Speaking this time in the House of Commons on November
19th he apologised for nothing. He manfully stood his ground in defence
of the policy of the Versailles Council.
He revealed the important fact that Lord Kitchener was the first
war-chief who proposed closer co-operation between the Allies. Lord
Kitchener made that suggestion as far back as January 1915. It was then
far more difficult to carry out. But the disasters of 1917 had made it
easier.
He made even a more startling revelation. It was that the same proposal
had been made in July of that very year (1917), not by the statesmen,
but by the soldiers at a meeting of the Commanders-in-Chief at which Sir
William Robertson, General Cadorna, and General Foch had been all
present. So it was not true, as suggested in so many quarters, that this
was a case of civilians forcing an idea of their own upon reluctant
soldiers.
Then Mr. Lloyd George passed to that spirited personal defence of his
Paris speech which has since become famous. It was, in many respects, an
apology which extended to his whole career. It was an explanation of his
own favourite political methods.
Briefly put, it was that he deliberately made a disagreeable speech in
order to arouse public opinion. It was not enough to pass resolutions.
What he wanted was public support. To obtain that he had resolutely and
in cold blood set out to give a shock to the public mind.
“It is not easy to rouse public opinion. I may know nothing
about military strategy, but I do know something of political
strategy. To get public opinion interested in a proposal and to
convince the public of the desirability of it is an essential
part of political strategy. That is why I did it. And it has
done it.”
Here is a precise statement of his favourite method—the method which he
has constantly used from the moment of his early defiance of the
magistrates in North Wales right up to that famous interview of the
“Knock-out Blow.” It may be called the application to politics of the
military method of the “Counter-attack.”
The proof of the pudding is, after all, in the eating. The result, for
instance, of these two speeches—the Paris speech and the Commons
defence—was so to familiarise and popularise the idea of central
military control that we now read them with some surprise at their
moderation. We feel some astonishment that such apologies should have
had to be uttered for a system of unified control which afterwards
became a commonplace of Allied strategy. The hammer-blows of fate proved
even more effective than the power of words in the House of Commons. But
we must remember that at the moment Mr. Lloyd George was beating up
against the wind. He had great forces working against him both within
Parliament and without. He had to face a remarkable alliance between
military professional pride, national feeling, and party tactics. The
triumph of these speeches is that such forces have proved so powerless
in the upshot against the overwhelming case for unity of control.
But the struggle was now only transferred from the debating-chamber to
the council-room. There Mr. Lloyd George was met with a very resolute
opposition from a body of military opinion supported by a very able and
pugnacious Press. The military opinion, at any rate, was as honest as it
was stubborn. The power of great national traditions was linked to the
strength of professional feeling. It was hard and painful to come into
conflict with men like Sir William Robertson. But the issue had to be
fought through; and no Government would have been worth its salt which
allowed a great political and international issue to be decided by
military opinion. Mr. Lloyd George was fighting for one of the oldest
principles of the British Constitution when he asserted the final
supremacy of civilian control.
Yet it was not remarkable that the debate on this issue should have
puzzled the minds of many honest men. For it raised the old
question—should not matters of war be left entirely to the soldiers?
Those who maintain that view seemed to have a very strong weight of
common sense on their side. For how should civilians know anything of
war?
A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
And is not the civilian a mere child in the fiery matters of war?
In any ordinary war it would seem to be the right policy for statesmen
to hand purely military matters to the soldiers and keep negotiations
for themselves. The business of the statesman would appear to be to
stand by as a possible peace-maker; although there have been wars which
have been not only skilfully conducted but also wisely concluded by
soldiers. Lord Kitchener, for instance, was never greater than in the
negotiations which ended the Boer War.
But this World-war was already seen to be no ordinary war. If the
European side of the war alone had been confined to Flanders, then, as
in the wars of Marlborough, both strategy and statesmanship might have
been left to the same man; although in that conspicuous case it was the
civilian statesman who had to intervene before peace could be achieved.
But, with operations confined and aims defined, the part of the
civilians often lightly limited to the choice of generals and the
provision of armies.
Here, however, was a war in which operations could not be confined nor
aims defined. Here was a struggle already (1917) limited to no country
and to no continent; carried on in three elements—earth, sea, and
air—a conflict enveloping a planet.
In Europe alone the battle-front stretched across the whole Continent
from west to east; and Palestine and Mesopotamia belonged to the same
front as Belgium.[115]
Such a war has multitudinous aspects. It has its politics as well as its
strategy; its tactics of the council-room as well as its tactics of the
field. Military decisions have often to be based on political
considerations; the movements of armies are decided by the relations of
the Allied countries. Even strategy itself is revolutionised; for in
such a war strategy stakes many new forms—there is the strategy of the
air as well as the strategy of the earth; the strategy of the sea as
well as the strategy of air. There is the strategy of continents as well
as the strategy of countries. But all through the one distinguishing
feature of the whole war was that nowhere in any aspect could strategy
be wholly divorced from statesmanship.
The Germans recognised this fact throughout. The direction of their
attacks—east or west—was often decided by political motives. War
offensives were mingled with peace offensives, and the art of Machiavel
added to the art of Napoleon. The hell’s broth at Berlin was cunningly
brewed of the mingled herbs of war and peace. Perhaps it would have been
as well if sometimes we had given to them the flattery which consists in
imitation.
But in Great Britain there has always been a cruder division between the
soldier and the politician. Just as the soldier is suppressed during
times of peace so the statesman is allowed little say during times of
war. We have yet to learn from our enemies that war is a form of
politics, and that neither of the two activities of the State can be
wholly divided from the other. The cry of “Hands off the war!” uttered
to the statesman is equivalent to a cry of dismissal.
Mr. Lloyd George, at any rate, was not at all willing to accept this
impotent conclusion. He was clear that if the soldiers were to conduct
the whole strategy of the war they must be responsible for the politics
of the war also. The only conclusion of that logic was a military
dictatorship. But, to do them justice, none of the honest soldiers who
contended with him nursed ambitions of that kind. The only end to the
argument, therefore, was certain to be a vindication of the civil power.
To win the war, the soldier and the statesman must work hand in hand.
That was the sound and safe line of policy along which Mr. Lloyd George
steadily worked.
He tried his best to win over those eminent soldiers who honestly held
the other view and opposed the Versailles Council on principle. Sir
William Robertson was offered the high position of British
representative in the Council. From reasons which did him nothing but
credit—reasons of honest conviction—he refused the position and took
instead the Eastern Command. Another soldier, Sir Frederick Maurice
(Director of Military Operations on the Army Council) carried his
opposition further on retirement from the Council. He wrote a letter to
the Press openly disputing the accuracy of certain statements made by
the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. Mr. Lloyd George offered a
Court of Judges to try the case; but, on Mr. Asquith preferring a
Committee of the House of Commons, Mr. Lloyd George decided to vindicate
his own accuracy before the House of Commons itself. The result of his
defence was that he obtained an overwhelming majority as a vote of
confidence in himself and his Government. But it was necessary for the
Army Council to vindicate discipline; and Sir Frederick Maurice was
retired on half-pay.
Painful as this incident was to all who had regard for an honourable and
high-minded soldier, it was a necessary and salutary assertion of
civilian control over military.
British opinion, at any rate, steadily supported Mr. Lloyd George.
Events at the front soon bore out only too clearly the soundness of his
views. It was noted that in the battle of St. Quentin the German armies
stuck at the link between the British and the French forces with the
sure instinct that there they would find the weakest point. The moral
was only too obvious. Control must not be less united, but more. Without
a protest from any responsible quarter in Great Britain the famous
Frenchman, General Foch, was in 1918 appointed Generalissimo on the
Western front.
Thus the policy of Rapallo triumphed, and the unity of control was
attained.
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[112] See his House of Commons defence (November 19th).
“But I was afraid of this. Here was a beautifully drafted document in
which you had concerned a considerable number of men, including a
distinguished soldier—for a member of the General Staff was one who was
most helpful to me in drafting the document—prepared, carried by the
Allies at two or three conferences. Nothing happens, simply an
announcement in the papers that at least we had found some means of
co-ordination. There has been too much of that. I made up my mind to
take risks....”
[113] “I considered it carefully.... If that speech was wrong I cannot
plead any impulse. I cannot plead that it was something I said in the
heat of the moment. I had considered it, and I did so for a deliberate
purpose.” (House of Commons Defence, November 19th).
[114] Paris speech. _Times_, November 13th, 1917. See report in _The
Great Crusade_, pp. 151-62 (Hodder & Stoughton 1918).
[115] “We have gone on talking of the Eastern front and the Western
front, and the Italian front, and the Salonika front, and the Egyptian
front, and the Mesopotamia front, forgetting that there is but one front
with many flanks; that with these colossal armies the battle-field is
continental” (Mr. Lloyd George at Paris, November 12th).