Only one valid military excuse can be put forward for imprisoning a

great field army for three years in the Salonika area, a plan to which

the General Staff was consistently opposed from the outset. It enabled

our side to employ some 150,000 Serbian and Greek troops, whom it

might have been difficult to turn to good account elsewhere; at the

very end the Greek contingents were, moreover, being substantially

increased. In what was to a great extent a war of attrition this was a

point of some importance. But that great field army was for all

practical purposes immobilized for the whole of the three years. It

was immobilized partly by inferior bodies of troops--mainly Bulgarian,

whom the German Great General Staff would have found it hard to

utilize in other theatres. It was immobilized partly by having before

it a wide zone of rugged uplands which were in occupation of the

enemy, and which forbade the employment of masses of men. That great

field army never at any time pulled its weight, and its presence in

Macedonia threw a severe and unwarranted strain upon our naval

resources owing to the difficulty of safeguarding its communications

against submarines in a water area exceptionally favourable for the

operations of such craft.

At the end of the three years that great field army did carry out a

remarkably successful offensive, in which the Serbs played a gallant

and prominent part. But, without wishing to disparage the fine work

performed by the various contingents in that offensive of September

1918--British, French, Italian, Serb and Greek--the fact remains that

the Bulgars were defeated not in Macedonia but in Picardy and Artois.

Exhausted by years of hostilities--they had been at it since

1912--they knew that the game was up before the offensive ever

started, knew that their side had lost the war, knew that there was no

hope of succour from Germany. Considering the hopelessness of the

situation from the point of view of the Central Powers, it is

surprising that the Sofia Executive did not throw up the sponge at a

somewhat earner date.

The Macedonian side-show is a typical example of the kind of side-show

which cannot be justified from the broad point of view of military

policy. In the next chapter a number of other side-shows which had

their place in the Great War will be touched upon. In it the fact will

be pointed out that side-shows are sometimes unavoidable, and it will

be suggested that most of those on which the British Government

embarked between 1914 and the end of the war were justifiable, even

when they were not absolutely unavoidable.

CHAPTER IX

OTHER SIDE-SHOWS

Three categories of side-shows -- The Jackson Committee -- The

Admiralty's attitude -- The Pacific, Duala, Tanga, Dar-es-Salaam,

Oceania, the Wireless Stations -- Kiao Chao -- The Shatt-el-Arab

-- Egypt -- Question whether the Australasian forces ought to

have been kept for the East -- The East African operations -- Our

lack of preparation for a campaign in this quarter -- Something

wrong -- My own visit to Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam in 1908 -- The

bad start of the campaign -- Question of utilizing South African

troops to restore the situation -- How this was managed --

Reasons why this was a justifiable side-show -- Mesopotamia --

The War Office ought to have interfered -- The question of an

advance on Baghdad by General Townshend suddenly referred to the

General Staff -- Our mistake -- The question of Egyptian defence

in the latter part of 1915 -- The Alexandretta project -- A later

Alexandretta project propounded by the War Cabinet in 1917 -- Its

absurdity -- The amateur strategist on the war-path -- The

Palestine campaign of 1918 carried out almost entirely by troops

not required on the Western Front, and therefore a legitimate

side-show -- The same principle to some extent holds good with

regard to the conquest of Mesopotamia -- The Downing Street

project to substitute Sir W. Robertson for Sir C. Monro, a

miss-fire.

"There must have been a baker's dozen of them," writes Lord Fisher in

his _Memories_ in reference to what he calls the "wild-cat

expeditions" on which troops were engaged while he was First Sea Lord

in 1914-15. There were a baker's dozen of them, and more, if the

occupation by Australasian contingents of certain islands in the

Indian Archipelago and the Pacific are included. But a correct

appreciation of the merits and of the demerits of our numerous

side-shows of those and later days is not covered by ejaculatory

generalizations. Some of the very greatest of soldiers--Marlborough,

Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Wellington--all countenanced

side-shows that were kept within limits.

The truth about side-shows is that they may be divided up roughly into

three categories: (1) The necessary, (2) the excusable, (3) the

unjustifiable and mischievous. But there is no sharp dividing-line

between the three categories. Of those for which we made ourselves

responsible in the Great War, the majority undoubtedly come within the

first category. Most of the remainder may, upon the whole, be classed

as excusable. Unfortunately the small number which come under the

third heading were just those which absorbed the greatest military

effort, and which were the only ones that really reckoned as vital

factors in influencing the course of the conflict as a whole. Amongst

the necessary and unavoidable side-shows were those which were

undertaken, at all events in the first instance, in the interests of

sea power. Amongst the side-shows which may be regarded as

justifiable, although not unavoidable, may be mentioned the

continuation of the Cameroons operations after the taking of Duala,

the continuation of the operations in "German East" after the capture

of Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam, and the continuation of the operations in

"German South-West" after the great wireless station had been dealt

with; in each of these cases the forces and resources of various kinds

absorbed were, for various reasons, of no great relative importance,

and the conquest of the Boche territories involved was desirable. Two

unjustifiable side-shows have already been discussed, the Dardanelles

and Salonika; another that comes within this third category was

Mesopotamia subsequent to the securing of the Shatt-el-Arab and the

Karun oil-fields, and yet another is represented by the excessive

resources which were devoted to Palestine operations during certain

periods of the war.

A special interdepartmental committee, an offshoot of the Committee of

Imperial Defence, was set up on the outbreak of the war, virtually as

an expansion of the already existing Colonial Defence Committee. By a

stroke of good fortune, its chairman was Admiral Sir Henry Jackson,

who was attached to the Admiralty for special service at the time; the

Colonial Office and the India Office, as well as the Admiralty were

represented on it, and I was the War Office delegate. It was on the

recommendations of this body that the operations against Togoland, the

Cameroons, and "German East" were initiated, that every encouragement

was given to the projects set on foot by the Australasian Governments

for the conquest of German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago,

Samoa, and other localities in Oceania, and that similar encouragement

was given to the Union Government of South Africa in respect to its

plans for wresting "German South-West" out of the hands of its

possessors and oppressors. The Admiralty attached extreme importance

to Duala, and considerable importance to Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga, as

also to some of the ports in Oceania owing to the presence of Von

Spee's squadron of swift cruisers in the Pacific. They likewise were

anxious that the German wireless stations of great range and power in

Togoland, the Cameroons, "German South-West," and "German East" should

be brought to nought.

Then there was also Kiao Chao. The capture of that enemy naval

stronghold in the Far East was regarded as eminently desirable, and

although the Japanese were ready and willing to take the thing on

alone it seemed expedient that we should contribute a small contingent

to assist, very much on the same principle as the French and Italians

liked to have small contingents fighting under the orders of General

Allenby during his triumphant operations in Palestine and Syria. Our

military garrisons at Tientsin and Hong-Kong could easily find a

couple of battalions, and from our British point of view this

contribution may be set down as coming within the category of an

excusable, if not an unavoidable, side-show. Apart from East Africa,

none of these minor sets of operations absorbed more than

insignificant military forces, which in most cases were composed

largely of Colonial coloured troops who were hardly fitted for

fighting on the Western Front at that stage. In almost all of them,

except "German East" and Kiao Chao, the object had been achieved

within a few weeks of the outbreak of hostilities, and even the

bitterest foes of the side-show in the abstract will admit that the

end justified the means.

The question of an expedition to the Shatt-el-Arab was first raised by

the India Office. Such an undertaking could indeed hardly suggest

itself during the first few weeks of the war, seeing that the Ottoman

Empire did not become involved until some weeks had elapsed. The

object of this Mesopotamia side-show, which ultimately developed into

one of the greatest campaigns ever undertaken by a European Power in a

region beyond the seas, was, to start with, simply the seizure of the

water-way for the length that this is navigable by ocean-going ships

together with the port of Basrah, and to secure the safety of the

oil-fields of the Karun. The operation incidentally could hardly fail

to exercise considerable political effect around the Persian Gulf,

which was all to the good, and the project did not call for the

employment of a large force to effect the purpose that was in view at

the start. Most military authorities would surely class this as a

thoroughly justifiable, if perhaps not an absolutely necessary,

side-show.

Then, thrusting itself into prominence about the same time as the

Shatt-el-Arab affair developed, came the question of Egypt. The Turks

would assuredly contrive a stroke at the Khedive's dominions from the

side of the Isthmus of Suez sooner or later, the attitude of the

tribes in the vast regions to the west of the Nile valley could not

but give grounds for some anxiety, and there was a fair chance of

effervescence within the Nile Delta itself. Maintaining the security

of Egypt was hardly more a side-show than was the provision of

garrisons for India; but the defence of Egypt at a later stage more or

less merged into offensive operations directed against Palestine. The

question of giving that defence a somewhat active form by undertaking

expeditionary enterprises in the direction of the Gulf of Alexandretta

came to be considered quite early in the war, as has already been

mentioned in Chapter III. But during the first six months or so Egypt

only in reality absorbed military resources which for various reasons

could not appropriately have been utilized elsewhere. The British

regulars were withdrawn from Cairo and Khartum and helped to form

divisions for the Western Front, considerable bodies of Native Indian

troops were transported to Suez from Bombay and Kurrachee, the East

Lancashire Territorial Division was sent out from home, and the newly

constituted contingents from the Antipodes secured a temporary

resting-place in a region which climatically was particularly well

suited for their purpose. Anxiety as to Egypt was as a matter of fact

in great measure allayed in January 1915, owing to the Osmanlis

pressing forward to the Suez Canal, sustaining a severe rebuff near

its banks at the hands of the defending force, and disappearing

eastwards as a beaten and disorganized rabble.

The Palestine operations will be touched upon later; but there is a

subject in connection with the contingents from the Antipodes,

referred to above, which, although it has nothing to do with the

principle of side-shows in the abstract, may perhaps not

inappropriately be discussed here. Was it right ever to have employed

those contingents on the Western Front, as they were employed from an

early date in 1916 onwards to the end of the struggle? The result of

their being so disposed of was that, covering a space of nearly three

years, troops from the United Kingdom were perpetually passing

eastwards through the Mediterranean while Australasian troops were

perpetually passing westwards through the Mediterranean. Military

forces belonging to the one belligerent Empire were, in fact, crossing

each other at sea. This involved an avoidable absorption of

ship-tonnage, it threw an avoidable strain upon the naval forces of

the Entente, and it imposed an avoidable period of inaction upon the

troops concerned. Look upon the Anzacs simply as counters and upon the

Great War as a _Kriegspiel_, and such procedure becomes ridiculous.

Whatever there is to be said for and against the Dardanelles,

Salonika, Palestine, and Mesopotamia side-shows, they did undoubtedly

absorb military forces in excess of those which Australia and New

Zealand placed in the field, and they provided active work in eastern

regions far nearer to the Antipodes than was the Western Front.

This, however, entirely ignores sentiment, and sentiment can never

justly nor safely be ignored in military matters. The Anzacs would

have bitterly resented being relegated to theatres, of secondary

importance so to speak. Their Governments would have protested had

such a thing been even hinted at, and they would have protested in

very forcible terms. No other course than that actually followed was

in reality practicable nor, as far as I know, ever suggested. As a

matter of fact, however, none of the Australasian mounted troops,

apart from some quite minor exceptions, ever did proceed west of the

Aegean. After performing brilliant service in the Gallipoli Peninsula

acting as foot soldiers, the Anzac Horse spent the last three years of

the war in Egypt, where they seized and made the most of opportunities

for gaining distinction under General Allenby such as would never have

been presented to them in France.

I was a good deal concerned in the operations in East Africa during

the first year and a half of the war, a period of scanty progress and

of regrettable misadventures. We enjoyed the advantage, when this

question came before Admiral Jackson's committee, of having

Lieut.-Colonel (now Major-General Sir A. R.) Hoskins present, who at

the time was Inspector-General of the King's African Rifles and was

consequently well acquainted with our own territories in that part of

the world. From the outset, Hoskins was disinclined to regard

operations in this quarter as a sort of picnic, and the event proved

that he was right. It was, however, settled that the whole business

should be handed over in the main to India to carry out, and that the

commander and staff for the contemplated offensive, as well as the

reinforcements needed for the purpose, should come across the Indian

Ocean from Bombay.

At a very early stage it became apparent that our information

concerning the enemy districts nearest to the frontier between German

territory and British East Africa was defective, while information as

to the districts on our own side was not all that might be wished, and

I gathered from Hoskins at the time (and also later on from Colonel G.

Thesiger, Hoskins' predecessor, who brought home his battalion of the

Rifle Brigade from India during the winter of 1914-15 and who was

killed when commanding a division at Loos in the autumn of 1915) that

the prosecution of active intelligence work had received little

encouragement from home during their terms of office. That is the

worst of a corps like the King's African Rifles being under the

Colonial Office instead of under the War Office, although there are

adequate reasons for that arrangement; but I cannot help thinking that

if the General Staff had pressed the matter, not much difficulty would

have been encountered in altering the Colonial Office's point of view,

and that both no doubt were to blame. It may also be remarked

incidentally that the Colonial Office probably has no secret service

funds at its disposal. Still, be that as it may, there was something

amiss.

Here we were, with British soil actually in contact with an extensive

province in the hands of a potential enemy and known to be garrisoned

by a considerable body of native troops. Everything pointed to the

need for extensive reconnaissance work in the borderland districts

with a view to possible eventualities. Numbers of active, intelligent,

and adventurous young British officers, admirably fitted for

acquiring military information, were stationed on our side of the

frontier. And yet when the storm broke we were unprepared to meet it.

We had plans worked out in the utmost detail for depositing the

Expeditionary Force at its concentration points in French territory.

Our naval policy was to all intents and purposes framed with a German

war as its ultimate goal. The probability of a conflict with the

Boches had for some years past virtually governed our military policy.

But in East Africa we were in a measure caught napping.

There had been lack of foresight. I had been guilty of this myself, so

that I have the less hesitation in referring to it; for I had been at

both Tanga and Dar-es-Salaam early in 1908. At the first-named port

our ship only spent a few hours, so that any kind of reconnaissance

work would have been out of the question. But we lay for four days on

end in Dar-es-Salaam harbour, and yet it never occurred to me to

examine the place and its immediate surroundings from the point of

view of possible attack upon it in the future--this, moreover, after

having just given over charge of the strategical section in the War

Office. Even allowing for the fact that war with Germany was not

looming ahead to the same extent in 1908 as it was from 1909 onwards,

there was surely something wrong on that occasion.

The start that was made in East Africa in 1914 can only be described

as deplorable. Following a custom which to my mind is more honoured in

the breach than in the observance, the mortifying results of the

attempted maritime descent upon Tanga which ushered in the

hostilities, were for a long time kept concealed from the public. That

reverse constituted a grave set-back--a set-back on a small scale

perhaps, but as decided a one as we met with during the war. Our

troops not only lost heavily in casualties, but they also suffered

appreciably in _moral_. For months subsequent to that untoward event

we were virtually on the defensive in this theatre of war, although we

unquestionably enjoyed the advantage in actual numbers, and although

the maritime communications were open to our side and closed to that

of the enemy. The enemy enjoyed such initiative as there was. Bodies

of hostile troops used to cross the border from time to time and

inflict unpleasant pin-pricks upon us. The situation was an eminently

unsatisfactory one, but what was to be done?

That "German East" was just the very place to utilize South African

troops in, became apparent at a comparatively early stage of the

proceedings. Even before General Botha and his men had completed his

conquest of "German South-West," one had already begun to dream dreams

of these same forces, or their equivalent, coming to the rescue on the

farther side of the Dark Continent, and of their getting our Indian

and native African contingents, with their small nucleus of British

regulars, out of the scrape that they were in. Being in constant

communication with General C. W. Thomson, who was in command of the

exiguous body of British soldiers left at the Cape, I was able to

gauge the local feeling out there fairly correctly, and became

convinced that we should be able to rely on securing a really

high-class contingent of improvised units for "German East" out of

South Africa, of units composed of tough, self-reliant, experienced

fighting men who might not be disposed to undertake service on the

Western Front. The special character of the theatre of war in East

Africa, the nature of the fighting which its topography imposed on the

contending sides, its climate, its prospects for the settler, and its

geographical position, were all such as to appeal to the dwellers on

the veldt. But when the subject was broached once or twice to Lord K.

during the summer of 1915 he would have nothing to do with it. Once

bitten twice shy. The War Minister looked on side-shows with no kindly

eye. Nor could he be persuaded that this was one which would only be

absorbing resources that could hardly be made applicable to other

quarters.

Mr. Bonar Law, who was then Colonial Minister, was very anxious to

have the military situation in this part of the world cleared up, and

I rather took advantage of Lord K.'s absence in the Near East in

November to bring the whole thing to a head. Sir A. Murray quite

agreed that South Africa ought to be invited to step in and help. So

it came about that the business was practically settled by the time

that the Chief came back from the Dardanelles, and although he was by

no means enthusiastic, he accepted the situation and he chose Sir H.

Smith-Dorrien for the command. Whether this was, or was not, a

justifiable side-show is no doubt a matter of opinion. But a very

large proportion of the troops who eventually conquered "German East"

under Generals Smuts, Hoskins and Van Deventer would scarcely have

been available for effective operations in any other theatre, and the

demands in respect to artillery, aircraft, and so forth were almost

negligible as compared to the resources that were in being even so

early as the winter of 1915-16. Perhaps the most powerful arguments

that could be brought forward against the offensive campaign that was

initiated by General Smuts in German East Africa were its cost and the

amount of ship-tonnage that it absorbed. The primary object for which

operations in this region were undertaken, the capture of Tanga and

Dar-es-Salaam so as to deprive the enemy of their use for naval

purposes, had rather dropped out of consideration owing to the seas

having been cleared of enemy non-diving craft in the meantime.

The Mesopotamian operations during the first year and a half were

conducted entirely by the India Office and India, and, up till after

Sir W. Robertson had become C.I.G.S., we had no direct responsibility

in connection with them in the War Office. I had a subsection that

dealt entirely with Indian matters; this kept watch, noted the

telegrams, reports, and so forth, dealing with what was going on on

the Shatt-el-Arab and beyond, and it could at any moment supply me

with general information as to the situation. From time to time I used

to ask how the operations were progressing, and, without ever going

carefully into the matter, was disposed to look somewhat askance at

the procedure that was being adopted of continually pressing forward

from place to place--like the hill-climber who on reaching one crest

ever feels himself drawn on to gain the next--far beyond the zone

which had in the first instance been regarded as the objective of the

Expeditionary Force. The meteor of conquest appeared to be alluring

"D" Force too far. Without examining the position of affairs closely,

it was obvious that the farther our troops proceeded up the Tigris the

longer became their line of communications, the shorter became that of

the Turks, and the greater must inevitably become the contingents put

in the field by our side. What had started as a limited-liability and

warrantable side-show was somehow imperceptibly developing into a

really serious campaign in a remote region.

Looking back upon those months in the light of later experience, the

attitude which one felt disposed to assume, the attitude that as this

was an India Office business with which the War Office had nothing to

do it was their funeral, was a mistaken one. The War Office could not,

of course, butt in unceremoniously. But Lord Kitchener was a member of

the Government in an exceptionally powerful position in all things

connected with the war, and had one represented one's doubts to him,

he would certainly have gone into the question and might have taken up

a strong line. I, however, have no recollection of ever speaking to

him on the subject of Mesopotamia during the period when "D" Force was

working right up into Irak, moving first to Amarah, then to El Gharbi,

and then on to Kut, thus involving the Empire in a regular offensive

campaign on an ambitious scale in the cradle of the world.

Then came that farther advance of General Townshend's from Kut to

Azizieh, the project for an advance right up to Baghdad assumed shape

at Army Headquarters on the Tigris, in Simla, and at the India Office,

and it was then that the General Staff, now with Sir A. Murray in

charge, was suddenly called upon to give a considered opinion

concerning this ambitious scheme for the information of the War

Council. Now it is an interesting fact that just at that very same

time we were called upon to give a considered opinion on the subject

of the best plan of rendering Egypt secure, and that this necessarily

raised the question whether the plan should favour an active form of

defence involving an expedition to Alexandretta or thereabouts, or

whether it should take a more passive form of holding positions away

back near the Suez Canal. The two Memoranda were as a matter of fact

printed in the one secret document.

As regards Alexandretta we had no doubts whatever, although, as

already mentioned on p. 79, Lord K. and the experts in connection with

Egypt favoured operations in that direction. We made up our minds

without the slightest difficulty, and pronounced dead against a

forward policy of that kind at such a time. But in reference to

Baghdad we all of us, I think, felt undecided and in a quandary.

Unacquainted with General Townshend's views, assuming that the river

transport upon which military operations up-Tigris necessarily hinged

was in a reasonably efficient condition, ignorant of the obstacles

which forbade a prompt start from Azizieh, we pictured to ourselves a

bound forward at a very early date. Actually the advance did not

materialize for more than a month, and in the meantime the Turks were

gathering reinforcements apace. The city might have been occupied had

General Townshend been able to push forward at once; for an army

(favoured, it is true, by incomparably more effectual administrative

arrangements) did sixteen months later reach the place within seven

days of quitting Azizieh, although strongly opposed. But so exiguous

an expeditionary force could not have maintained itself in that

isolated situation in face of swelling hostile numbers. In falling

back to his advanced base its leader would have been faced with

nearly double the distance to cover that he compassed so successfully

in his retreat from Ctesiphon. The little army would almost certainly

have been cornered and compelled for lack of supplies to surrender in

some advanced position in Irak five months earlier than, as it turned

out, Kut hauled down the flag.

But, be that as it may, we made ourselves to some extent responsible

for the disaster which occurred to General Townshend's force, owing to

our not taking a decided line on the subject and not obeying the

elementary principle that resources must not in war be wasted upon

unnecessary subsidiary enterprises. Whether it was or was not feasible

to get to Baghdad at the time was a matter of some uncertainty. But

that the whole business of all this pouring of troops into Mesopotamia

was fundamentally unsound scarcely admitted of dispute. That ought to

have determined our attitude on the minor Baghdad point.

Egypt gave rise to little anxiety during the spring and summer of 1915

in consequence of the signal discomfiture which the Turks had suffered

on the Canal early in the year; the arid tract known as the Sinai

desert indeed provided a satisfactory defence in itself during the dry

months. But as autumn approached, the prospect of Ottoman efforts

against the Nile Delta had to be taken into serious consideration, the

more so that neither the Dardanelles Committee nor the War Council

which took its place could disguise from themselves that the

abandonment of the Dardanelles enterprise was at least on the cards,

and that this would liberate Osmanli forces for efforts in other

directions. There had been a school of thought in Egypt all along that

the best defence of that region against Turkish invasion was by

undertaking operations on the Syrian or Palestine coast, based on the

Gulf of Iskanderun for preference, but possibly based on Beirut or

Haifa. As the situation in the Near East grew rapidly worse during

September, the War Council began to dream of diversions in new

directions, quite apart from the Gallipoli Peninsula and Salonika,

and some of them pitched upon the shores of the Gulf of Iskanderun,

the strategical importance of which was unquestionable. A force landed

in that quarter would give the enemy something to think about, would

afford excellent protection to Egypt, and would indirectly assist our

troops, which had been gradually penetrating along the Tigris right up

into Mesopotamia.

On this project the General Staff was called upon to report, as

already mentioned in Chapter IV, and as stated above, and the General

Staff rejected the project without hesitation. This was a very

different scheme from that which had been regarded with approval in

the winter of 1914-15. Then the enemy resources in these environs had

been insignificant, the Turkish communications leading thither had

still been interrupted by the Taurus Mountains, and there had been no

U-boats in the Mediterranean. Now the enemy was fully prepared in this

quarter and would be on the look-out for our troops, the tunnels

through the Taurus had been completed, and warships and transports

could not possibly have lain moored in the roadstead of Alexandretta

for fear of submarines. The landing would have had to take place in

the inner portion of the Gulf of Iskanderun, Ayas Bay, where there

were no facilities, where the surroundings were unhealthy, and where

it would be particularly easy for the Turks to put up a stolid

resistance. Our view was that for any operation of this kind to be

initiated with reasonable safety, a very large body of troops would be

necessary, that as far as Egypt was concerned the Nile Delta could be

rendered absolutely secure with a much smaller expenditure of force,

and that the inevitable result of embarking on a campaign in this new

region would be to withdraw yet more of the Entente fighting resources

from the main theatre of war in France. It would have been a side-show

for which very little could be said and the objections to which seemed

to us manifest and overwhelming. The War Council took our advice and

dropped the scheme, although Lord Kitchener, who was out in the

Aegean, favoured it. Any anxiety that prevailed as to Egypt settled

itself shortly afterwards owing to the Gallipoli troops, so skilfully

withdrawn from Anzac, Suvla and Helles, all assembling in the Nile

Delta, where they were refitted and obtained some rest after their

terribly arduous campaign in the Thracian Chersonese. This practically

synchronized with the time of my leaving the War Office for the time

being and proceeding to Russia.

As will be mentioned in Chapter XIV., one heard more about

Alexandretta while out in that country. I, moreover, became indirectly

concerned in that same old question again at a considerably later

date. For, early in October 1917, the War Cabinet hit upon a great

notion. On the close of the Flanders operations a portion of Sir D.

Haig's forces were to be switched thither to succour Generals Allenby

and Marshall in their respective campaigns, and were to be switched

back again so as to be on hand for the opening of active work on the

Western Front at the beginning of March 1918--a three months'

excursion. This scheme seems to have been evolved quite _au grand

sérieux_ and not as a joke. At all events, a conference (which I was

called in to attend as knowing more about the Dardanelles business

from the War Office end than anybody else) assembled in the Chief of

the Imperial General Staff's room one Sunday morning--the First Sea

Lord and the Deputy First Sea Lord with subordinates, together with

General Horne who happened to be over on leave from his First Army,

and prominent members of the General Staff--and we gravely debated the

idiotic project.

Nobody but a lunatic would, after Gallipoli experiences, undertake

serious land operations in the Alexandretta region with less than six

divisions. To ship six divisions absorbs a million tons. There were

United States troops at this time unable to cross the Atlantic for

want of tonnage, and, allowing for disembarkation difficulties on the

Syrian coast, two soldiers or animals or vehicles could be transported

from America to French or English ports for every one soldier or

animal or vehicle that could be shifted from Marseilles or Toulon to

the War Cabinet's fresh theatre of operations, given the same amount

of shipping. Our Italian allies were in sore straits over coal for

munitions and transportation purposes, simply because sufficient

tonnage could not be placed at their disposal. Our own food supplies

were causing anxiety, and the maintenance of the forces at Salonika

afforded constant proof of the insecurity of the Mediterranean as a

sea route. But fatuous diversion of shipping represented quite a minor

objection to this opera-bouffe proposal. For, allowing for railing

troops from the Western Front to the Côte Azure and embarking them,

and for the inevitable delays in landing a force of all arms on a

beach with improvised piers, the troops at the head of the hunt would

already have to be re-embarking in Ayas Bay by the time that those at

the tail of the hunt came to be emptied out on the shores of the Gulf

of Iskanderun; otherwise the wanderers would miss the venue on the

Western Front.

Had this been suggested by a brand-new Ministry--a Labour Cabinet,

say, reviewing the military situation at its very first

meeting--nobody could reasonably have complained. People quite new to

the game naturally enough overlook practical questions connected with

moving troops by land and sea, and do not realize that those questions

govern the whole business. Any third-form boy, given a map of

Turkey-in-Asia and told of campaigns in Palestine, and Mesopotamia,

and Armenia, and of the bulk of enemy resources being found about

Constantinople and in Anatolia, who did not instantly perceive how

nice it would be to dump an army down at Alexandretta, would, it is

earnestly to be hoped, be sent up to have his dormant intelligence

awakened by outward applications according to plan. Quite

knowledgeable and well-educated people call this sort of thing

"strategy," and so in a sense it is--it is strategy in the same sense

as the multiplication table is mathematics. If you don't know that two

added to two makes four, and divided by two makes one, the integral

calculus and functional equations will defeat you; if it has never

occurred to you that by throwing your army, or part of it, across the

route that your opponent gets his food and his ammunition and his

reinforcements by you will cause him inconvenience, then your name is

not likely to be handed down to posterity with those of the Great

Captains. But the War Cabinet of October 1917 contained personages of

light and leading who had been immersed up to the neck in the conduct

of hostilities ever since early in 1915.

The Royal Navy could always be trusted to play the game on these

occasions. When you cannot get your own way in the army, you beslaver

the local martial Esculapius with soft words and prevail upon him to

back you up. "Oh, if the medical authorities pronounce it necessary,"

thereupon declare the Solons up top who have been sticking their toes

in, "it's of course got to be done." Similarly, when the amateur

strategist gets out of hand, you appeal to the sailors to save the

situation. "Just look at what these owls are after now," you say;

"they'll upset the coach before they've done with it. _You_ won't be

able to do your share in the business, and we----" "Not do our share

in the business? Why not? Of course we----" "Yes, yes, I know that;

but you really must help us. One of those unintelligible masterpieces

of yours all about prostitution of sea-power, and periscopes and that

sort of poppy-cock with which you always know how to bluff the

lubbers." "Well, we'll see what we can do"--and the extinguisher is

dexterously and effectually applied. Co-operation between the two

great fighting services is the master-key opening every impeditive

doorway on the path to victory.

The operations which brought about the occupation of Palestine and

Syria constituted a side-show on a very important scale indeed, and

they at one period swallowed up contingents of British troops that

were somewhat badly needed on the Western Front, just as the Salonika

business did. Troops of that character, troops fit to throw against

the Hindenburg Line, however, represented quite an insignificant

proportion of the forces with which General Allenby achieved his

startling triumphs in the year 1918. The urgent need of increasing our

strength in France and Flanders during the winter of 1917-18 was fully

realized by the General Staff at the War Office, and efforts were made

to induce the War Cabinet to consent to withdraw some of the British

troops from Palestine. But nothing was done in the matter until after

the successful German offensive of March, when the enemy almost drove

a wedge through the Allies' front near Amiens. After that the bulk of

General Allenby's British infantry were taken from him and rushed off

to France, native troops from India which had been created by Sir C.

Monro since he had taken up the chief command there in 1916, together

with some veteran Indian companies from Mesopotamia, being sent in

their place. The brilliant offensive which carried our flag to

Damascus and on to Aleppo after utterly defeating the Turks was

executed with a soldiery of whom the greater part could be spared from

the decisive theatre. The conquering army was composed almost entirely

of mounted men for whom there was little scope in France, or of Indian

troops. Even had the results been infinitely less satisfactory to the

Entente in themselves than they actually were, a side-show run on such

lines was a perfectly legitimate undertaking.

The same principle to some extent holds good in respect to the

conquest of Mesopotamia by Sir S. Maude and Sir W. Marshall. The

troops which won such striking successes in that theatre of war

included a considerable proportion of units which would not have been

employed on the Western Front in any case. The army was to a large

extent a native Indian one, and latterly it included its quota of the

freshly organized units which General Monro had created. The fact

remains, however, that from April 1916 (when Kut fell) until the end

of the war, a considerable force of British white troops was

continuously locked up in this remote region, engaged upon what can

hardly be called a necessary side-show.

In connection with the remarkably successful efforts made by the

Commander-in-Chief in India to expand the local forces during the last

two years of the conflict, there is a matter which may be mentioned

here. That the victorious campaigns in Palestine and in Mesopotamia in

1917 and 1918 were in no small degree attributable, indirectly, to

what General Monro had accomplished by energy and administrative

capacity, is well known to all who were behind the scenes, and has

been cordially acknowledged by Lord Allenby and Sir W. Marshall.

Especially was this the case in Palestine in 1918, when brand-new

native Indian regiments took the place of British troops belatedly

summoned to the Western Front after our line had been broken at St.

Quentin. Nevertheless, a Downing Street intrigue was set on foot about

the end of April 1918 to substitute Sir W. Robertson for the commander

of the forces in India who had accomplished so much since taking over

charge.

Not that there was any desire to remove Sir C. Monro. The object of

the shuffle was simply to get Sir W. Robertson out of the country, in

view of the manner in which his warnings in connection with

strengthening our forces in France had been disregarded and of his

having proved to be right. Sir William would no doubt have made an

excellent Commander-in-Chief in India; but if ever there was an

example of ill-contrived swapping of horses while crossing a stream,

this precious plot would have provided the example had it been carried

into execution. There would have been a three months' interregnum

while the new chief was on his way out and was picking up the strings

after getting out--this in the middle of the final year of the war!

The best-laid plans of politicians, however, gang aft a-gley. Sir C.

Monro had stipulated, when reluctantly agreeing to give up command of

his army on the Western Front in the autumn of 1916 and to proceed to

Bombay, that this Indian appointment was to be a permanent one, and

not a temporary one such as all other appointments came to be during

the war. He did not feel disposed to fall in with the Downing Street

project when this was broached. Is it to be wondered at that military

men regard some of the personnel that is found in Government circles

with profound suspicion?

CHAPTER X

THE MUNITIONS QUESTION

Mr. Asquith's Newcastle speech -- The mischief that it did -- The

time that must elapse before any great expansion in output of

munitions can begin to materialize -- The situation analogous to

that of a building -- The Ministry of Munitions took, and was

given, the credit for the expansion in output for the year

subsequent to its creation, which was in reality the work of the

War Office -- The Northcliffe Press stunt about shell shortage --

Its misleading character -- Sir H. Dalziel's attack upon General

von Donop in the House -- Mr. Lloyd George's reply -- A

discreditable episode -- Misapprehension on the subject of the

army's preparedness for war in respect to material --

Misunderstanding as to the machine-gun position -- Lord French's

attack upon the War Office with regard to munitions -- His

responsibility for the lack of heavy artillery -- The matter

taken up at the War Office before he ever raised it from G.H.Q.

-- His responsibility for the absence of high-explosive shell for

our field artillery -- A misconception, as to the rôle of the

General Staff -- The serious difficulty that arose with regard to

this ammunition owing to prematures -- The misstatements in

"_1914_" as to the amount of artillery ammunition which was sent

across France to the Dardanelles -- Exaggerated estimates by

factories as to what they would be able to turn out -- Their

estimates discounted as a result of later experiences -- The

Munitions Ministry not confined to its proper job -- The incident

of 400 Tanks -- Conclusion.

Who reads the platform addresses of political personages, even the

most eminent and the most plausible? Some people evidently do, or such

utterances would not fill the columns of our newspapers. If one had

ever felt tempted to peruse the reports of these harangues in the

piping times of peace, one assuredly had neither the inclination nor

yet the leisure to indulge in such practices during the early days of

the Great War. To skim off the cream of the morning's news while at

breakfast was about as much as a War Office mandarin could manage in

the way of reading the daily papers during that super-strenuous time.

One morning, however--it must have been the morning of the 22nd of

April 1915--I met an assistant with a journal in his hand, as I was

making my way along the corridor to my room in the War Office. "Seen

this what Squiff says about the shell, general?" he asked, handing me

the paper with his finger on the passage in the Prime Minister's

Newcastle speech, denying that there was an ammunition shortage.

The report of that discourse took one flat aback. For weeks past

letters from G.H.Q., as also the fervent representations made by

visitors over on duty or on leave from the front, had been harping

upon this question. Lord Kitchener had informed the House of Lords on

the 15th day of March that the supply of war material was "causing him

considerable anxiety." There was not the slightest doubt, even

allowing for the tendency of men exposed to nerve-racking experiences

or placed in positions of anxious responsibility to find fault, that

our army in France and Flanders was at a terrible disadvantage as

compared to that opposed to it in the matter of artillery ammunition.

The state of affairs was perfectly well known, not merely to the

personnel of batteries constantly restricted in respect to

expenditure, but also to the infantry and to other branches of the

service deprived of adequate gun support. Into the controversies and

recriminations which have taken place over the subject of how this

extraordinary statement came to be made at Newcastle, it is not

proposed to enter here. There is at all events no controversy as to

whether the statement was true or not, in substance and in fact. It is

common knowledge now, and it was indeed fairly common knowledge at the

time, that the statement was in the highest degree misleading. It did

a great deal of mischief amongst the troops in the war zone, and it

caused serious injury to those who were responsible for the provision

of munitions in this country.

A pronouncement of that kind, published as it was in all the

newspapers, was bound to arouse comment not merely at home, but also

amongst officers and men confronting the enemy between Dixmude and the

La Bassée Canal. These latter, who were only too well aware of the

realities of the case, resented such a misstatement of facts, and they

were also inclined to jump to the conclusion, not altogether

unnaturally, that the serious ammunition shortage, the crying need for

additional heavy ordnance, and so forth, were being deliberately

ignored by those responsible for supply at home. The inferiority of

our side in the field in respect to certain forms of munitions as

compared to the enemy, came to be attributed to indifference and to

mismanagement on the part of the Master-General of the Ordnance's

department and of Lord Kitchener. Even the majority of artillery

officers had not the slightest conception of what an expansion of

output of munitions on a huge scale involved. Still less were staff

officers in general and officers of other branches of the service in a

position to interpret the situation correctly. They did not realize

that before you can bring about any substantial increase of production

in respect to shell, or fuses, or rifles, or machine-guns, or

howitzers, you have to provide the machinery with which the particular

form of war material is to be manufactured, and that you probably have

to fashion some extensive structure to house that machinery in. It

takes months before any tangible result can be obtained, the number of

months to elapse varying according to the nature of the goods.

Dwellers in great cities will often note what happens when some

ancient building has been demolished by the house-breaker. The site is

concealed by an opaque hoarding. For months, even sometimes for years,

nothing seems to follow. The passer-by who happens to get an

opportunity of peeping in when some gate is opened to let out a cart

full of debris, only sees a vast crater at the bottom of which men,

like ants, are scurrying about with barrows or are delving in the

earth. All the time that the ground is being cleared and that the

foundations are being laid, those out in the street know nothing of

what is going on, and they wonder why some effort is not made to

utilize the vacant space for building purposes. Then one day, quite

unexpectedly, scaffolding begins to rear its head. A few weeks later

bricklayers and their work begin to show above the hoarding; and from

that moment things at last are obviously on the move. The edifice

grows from day to day. Within quite a short space of time workmen are

already putting on the roof. Then down comes the scaffolding, windows

are put in, final touches are given to the interior, and, within what

seems to be no time at all from the day when the scaffolding first was

seen, the building is ready for occupation. So it is with the

manufacture of munitions--experience in the United States in

connection with output for us and also in connection with output for

Russia, was exactly the same as in the United Kingdom in this respect.

An interminable time seems to elapse before the output begins; but

once it has fairly started it grows by leaps and bounds.

At the time of the Newcastle oration, and for some months

subsequently, the work of expansion on a colossal scale which the

Master-General of the Ordnance had undertaken was still, speaking

generally, rather on the footing of the building of which the

foundations are only beginning to be laid even if the excavations have

been completed and the debris has been cleared away. There was as yet

comparatively little to show. The results did not begin to make

themselves apparent until a date when the Ministry of Munitions had

already come into being some time. That Department of State gained the

benefit. Its Chief took the credit for work in connection with which

it had for all practical purposes no responsibility beyond that of

issuing what predecessors had arranged for. The full product of the

contracts which the Master-General of the Ordnance had placed, of the

development he had given to existing Government establishments, and of

the setting up of entirely new ones by him, with Lord Kitchener ever

using his driving power and his fertility of resource in support, only

materialized in the winter of 1915-16, at a stage when the Ministry of

Munitions had been already full six months in existence.

If the army in general failed to understand the position, it is hardly

to be wondered at that Parliament and the less well-informed section

of the Press should not understand the position, and that the public

should have been deceived. Very shortly after the Newcastle speech,

and no doubt largely in consequence of it, the Northcliffe Press stunt

of May 1915 on the subject of shell shortage was initiated. Up to a

certain point that stunt was not only fully justified, but was

actually advantageous to the country. It made the nation acquainted

with the fact that our troops were suffering severely from

insufficiency of munitions. It stirred the community up, and that in

itself was an excellent thing. But it succeeded somehow at the same

time in conveying the impression that this condition of affairs was

due to neglect, and in consequence it misled public opinion and did

grave injustice. We must assume that, owing to fundamental ignorance

of the problems involved, to a neglect to keep touch with industrial

conditions, and to lack of acquaintance with the technicalities of

munitions manufacture, these newspapers (which usually contrive to be

extremely well informed, thanks to the great financial resources at

their back) were totally unaware that a sudden expansion of output on

a great scale was an impossibility; to suggest that this aspect of the

problem was deliberately suppressed would be highly improper. The

Northcliffe Press had also maybe failed to become acquainted with the

great increase that had taken place in the forces at the front, as

compared to the strength of the original Expeditionary Force which had

provided the basis of calculation for munitions in pre-war days, an

increase for which there was no counterpart in the armies of our

Allies or of our enemies. Or the effect that this must have in

accentuating munitions shortage may have been overlooked, obvious as

it was. Be that as it may, the country readily accepted the story as

it stood, and was in consequence grievously misinformed as to the

merits of the question. The real truth has only leaked out since the

cessation of hostilities, and it is not generally known now.[6]

[Footnote 6: So late as the 21st of April 1920 _The

Times_ included the following passage in a leading

article: "Every gunner officer on the Western Front

during the winter of 1914-15 knows that there was a

grave and calamitous deficiency of shells, and that

no satisfactory attempt was made to rectify it

until the matter was exposed in _The Times_."

Dragging in the "gunner officer" at the front (who

could not possibly tell what steps were being taken

to rectify the deficiency) does not alter the fact

that this passage amounts to an accusation that no

satisfactory attempt was made to rectify the

deficiency until after the Northcliffe Press stunt.

_The Times_ may have been so ill-informed as to the

actual facts in 1915 as to suppose that this was

true. _The Times_ cannot have been so ill-informed

as to the actual facts in 1920 as to suppose that

it was true.]

After the Government had decided to create a Munitions Ministry with

Mr. Lloyd George at its head, one of the first incidents that occurred

was an unsavoury one. In the course of the discussions in the House of

Commons over the Bill setting up this new Department of State, Sir H.

Dalziel, a newspaper proprietor and a politician of long standing,

delivered on the 1st of July a violent diatribe directed against Sir

S. von Donop, the Master-General of the Ordnance. The honourable

member no doubt quite honestly believed that the lack of munitions was

due to neglect on the part of the War Office since the beginning of

the war. It is clear that he was totally unqualified to express an

opinion on the subject, and that he was ignorant of the manufacturing

aspects of the problem. He had heard stories of mistakes made here and

there, such as was inevitable at a time of tremendous stress. He

probably had not the slightest conception that the primary cause of

the shell shortage was the neglect of the Government of pre-war days

(which had recognized his party services by conferring on him the

dignity of a Privy-Councillorship) to give support to the

establishments for manufacturing armaments that existed in the

country. It is not with his performance on this occasion that one

feels a disposition to quarrel, but with that of the newly created

Minister of Munitions.

Mr. Lloyd George could not plead ignorance of the facts. He had been

installed for a month or so. He must have known that it had been

totally impossible to produce, within ten months of the outbreak of

the war, the munitions that were required for an army in the field

three or four times greater than had ever been thought of prior to

mobilization.[7] He had actually given some pertinent information with

regard to manufacturing difficulties when he was introducing the bill,

which clearly demonstrated that he had grasped the general principles

governing the problem of munitions output. But what was his attitude?

Instead of following the honourable and chivalrous course, the course

sanctioned by long-established precedent and practice on the part of

Ministers of the Crown, of protecting, or trying to protect, the

public servant who had been assailed, he contented himself with

pointing out that the public servant ought to be given an opportunity

of stating his side of the question--which was manifestly impossible

in time of war--and that the onslaught was unexpected! There is not a

man in the United Kingdom better able to protect himself, or anybody

else, in speech and in argument in face of sudden attack than Mr.

Lloyd George. Had he been willing to do so he could have disposed of

Sir H. Dalziel, who in reality had no case, with the utmost ease.

[Footnote 7: On the 1st July we had 23 divisions

(exclusive of Indian divisions) in the field, and

one on the water. The "Expeditionary Force"

consisted of six divisions, but a vague sort of

organization for a seventh had also existed on

paper.]

But that line apparently did not suit the book of the Minister of

Munitions. He must have been well aware that a great improvement in

output was already beginning to take place, and that, thanks entirely

to the labours of the Ordnance Department of the War Office and of

Lord Kitchener, the output would within a few months reach huge

figures. If it were represented to the House, and through the House

to the country, that this question of munitions had been grossly

neglected up to the time that he took charge, and if it became

apparent subsequently that from the hour of his becoming Munitions

Minister a rapid improvement set in, then the thanks of the nation

would go out to him and he would be canonized. This is the only

explanation that I can find for a most discreditable incident. For he

made no attempt to meet the attack, and he contrived to convey the

impression by his remarks that the attack was fully justified. I have,

moreover, good reason for believing that on that day there was present

on the Treasury bench a representative of the War Office, not a

Cabinet Minister, who was ready and willing to defend the

Master-General of the Ordnance and who was acquainted with the facts,

but that the Minister of Munitions, being in charge of the House,

refused to sanction his speaking. Happily such occurrences are rare in

the public life of this country.

That reply of Mr. Lloyd George's on the 1st of July 1915--anybody can

look it up in Hansard--left an uncommonly nasty taste in the mouth.

The taste was made none the less nasty by his unblushing assumption on

later occasions of the credit for the improvement in munitions output

that took place from the summer of 1915 onwards. In my own case,

although I was nowise concerned with munitions output then, neither

pleasant association with Mr. Lloyd George at later dates in

connection with various war problems, nor yet the admiration for the

grit and courage displayed by him during the last three years of the

great contest which is felt by us all, could wholly remove that nasty

taste.

Much misapprehension--a misapprehension fostered by reckless and

ignorant assertions made on the subject in Parliament and in the

Press--exists in regard to the state of preparedness of our army for

war in the matter of armament. Rightly or wrongly--most people

probably now think wrongly--H.M. Government of pre-war days merely

contemplated placing in the field for offensive purposes a force of

six, or at the outside, seven divisions, with their complement of

mounted troops. Leaving the Germans out of consideration, our

Expeditionary Force of six divisions was upon the whole as well

equipped in respect to armament (apart from ammunition reserves) as

any one of the armies that were placed in the field in August 1914. It

only failed in respect to two items, heavy ordnance and high-explosive

shell for the field-guns, and in respect to field-howitzers and heavy

field-guns (the 60-pounders) it was better off than any, including the

German forces.

It will perhaps be urged that we were deplorably badly-off for

machine-guns, and so in a sense we were. But what were the facts? The

Expeditionary Force was better fitted out with this class of weapon

than any one of the embattled armies at the outset of the war, with

the exception of the German. Ex-Kaiser William's hosts enjoyed a

tremendous advantage in respect to machine-guns, but they enjoyed that

advantage to an even greater extent over the French and Russian

legions than over ours. No action on the part of the German Great

General Staff before the conflict reflects greater credit upon their

prescience, than does their recognition in the time of peace of the

great part that the mitrailleuse was capable of playing in

contemporary warfare. The quantities of these weapons with which our

principal antagonist took the field was a complete surprise to all;

these were far in excess of the "establishment" that had been

acknowledged and which was the same as our own. As a matter of fact we

were better off for them, relatively, than the French, or

Austro-Hungarians, or Russians. To say that the question of

machine-guns had been neglected by us before the war either from the

point of view of tactics or of supply, is almost as unfair as it would

be to allege that the question of Tanks had been neglected by the

Germans before the Battle of the Somme. In the course of the debate in

the House over the Munitions Bill in the early summer of 1915, Sir F.

Cawley stated that we were short of machine-guns at the beginning of

the war, and that none had been provided; the first charge was made

under a misapprehension, and the second charge was contrary to the

fact because a number of entirely new units had been fitted out with

the weapons. Mr. Lloyd George's statement, made a week before, that it

takes eight or nine months to turn out a machine-gun from the time

that the requisite new machinery is ordered, was ignored.

This brings us to the question of heavy ordnance and of high-explosive

ammunition for field-guns, and in this connection it is necessary to

refer to the violent attacks made upon the War Office in respect to

the supply of munitions, which find place in Lord French's "_1914_."

The Field-Marshal has not minced matters in his references to this

subject. He says of Mr. Lloyd George's work that it "was done in the

face of a dead weight of senseless but powerful opposition, all of

which he had to undermine and overcome." He speaks of the "apathy of a

Government which had brought the Empire to the brink of disaster,"

although his attitude towards the head of that Government hardly

betrays this. He devotes his last chapter to "making known some of the

efforts" that he "made to awaken both the Government and the public

from the apathy which meant certain defeat." His book appeared in the

summer of 1919, three and a half years after he had returned from

France, three and a half years which had given him ample time to

examine at home into the justice of views which he had formed during

critical months when confronting the enemy. His attitude relieves one

of many scruples that might have otherwise been entertained when

discussing the statement which he has made.

"_1914_," possibly unintentionally, leaves it to be inferred in

respect to heavy howitzers and similar ordnance, that the question of

supplying artillery of that type was first raised by Lord French

himself during the Battle of the Aisne. For the absence of any such

pieces from the Expeditionary Force when it started, no one, in my

opinion, was more responsible than the Field-Marshal. Plenty of

gunner officers were advocates of the employment of such ordnance in

the field, although none probably fully realized the importance of the

matter; but what evidence is there of encouragement from the

Inspector-General of the Forces of 1907-12 and C.I.G.S. of 1912-14,

who had been controlling the manoevres of the regular army for the

half-dozen years preceding August 1914? The question was taken up

within the War Office three or four weeks before the commencement of

the Battle of the Aisne--as soon, in fact, as the effect of the German

heavy howitzers against Liège and Namur came to be realized. I spoke

to Sir C. Douglas on the subject myself--I believe before the retreat

from Mons began. A Committee was set up, to which I contributed a

member from amongst the gunners in my branch. The immediate

construction of a very large--although not nearly large enough--number

of 8-inch, 9.2-inch and 12-inch howitzers was recommended by this

body. Lord Kitchener approved its recommendations on the spot, and the

Master-General of the Ordnance started work. All this, I believe, took

place before Sir J. French raised the question at all. But past

neglect could not be overcome at a moment's notice. Experiments had to

be carried out, and designs had to be approved. To construct a big

howitzer with its mounting takes time even after you have the

machinery available, and in 1914 the machinery had to be got together

in the first instance. How the ex-First Member of the Army Council

comes to be unaware of the extent to which the factor of time enters

into the construction of armament, I do not pretend to understand.

To a retired officer of artillery who had kept himself acquainted with

military progress, it did seem strange that after the Balkan War of

1912-13, which had clearly demonstrated the value of high-explosive

ammunition with field-guns, the War Office should continue to depend

entirely upon shrapnel for our 18-pounders, instead of following the

example of all other European countries that spent any considerable

sums on their armies. No very intimate acquaintance with technical

details was needed to realize that there were difficulties in the way,

and that high-explosive is awkward stuff to deal with--a gun of my own

5-inch battery in South Africa was, shortly after I had left the unit

to take up other work, blown to pieces by a lyddite shell detonating

in the bore, with dire results to the detachment. To secure detonation

is more difficult in a small, than in a big shell; but other countries

had managed to solve the problem in the case of their field-guns

somehow.

On joining at the War Office on mobilization, and before any fighting

had taken place, I asked about the matter, but was not wholly

convinced that there was adequate excuse for our taking the field

without what our antagonists and our Allies alike regarded as a

requisite. Ever since I joined the Army in 1878--and before--there had

been a vein of conservatism running through the upper ranks of the

Royal Artillery. (When my battery proceeded from India to Natal to

take part in the first Boer War in 1881, we actually had to change our

Armstrong breech-loading field-guns for muzzle-loaders on the way,

because breech-loaders had been abandoned at home and there was no

ammunition for them.) Of late years a progressive school had come into

being--technically described as "Young Turks"--who had tried hard to

secure the introduction of four-gun batteries and other up-to-date

reforms, but without having it all their own way by any means. Whether

the Young Turks favoured high-explosive or not, I do not know; but its

absence somehow did rather smack of the reactionary, and, with the

exception of one of its members, the personnel of the Expeditionary

Force appeared to have some grounds for complaint at its

field-batteries having none of this form of ammunition. The one

exception was, in my opinion, its commander-in-chief.

Lord French's account of his achievements in this matter is artless to

a degree. He informs his readers that he was always an advocate for

the supply of high-explosive shell to our horse and field artillery,

but that he got very little support; that such support as he got was

lukewarm in the extreme, and, finally, we are told that the "Ordnance

Board was not in favour of it." Here we have the Chief of the Imperial

General Staff and First Military Member of the Army Council advocating

the adoption in our army of what practically all other armies had

already adopted or were adopting, the adoption of a form of munitions

the value of which had been conclusively demonstrated in encounters of

which the General Staff must have had full cognizance, and he is

turned down by the "Ordnance Board"! If this represents the

Field-Marshal's conception of the position and the duties of the

General Staff and its head, then it is not surprising that, under

another chief, Tanks were dismissed with ignominy by a technical

branch of the War Office in January 1915 without the General Staff

ever having been consulted. The pre-war C.I.G.S. was in a dominating

position amongst the Military Members of the Army Council in virtue of

his high rank and his distinguished antecedents. He was very much more

than a _primus inter pares_. He was a field-marshal while the

Master-General of the Ordnance was a colonel with temporary rank of

major-general. Surely, if he had pressed this matter before the Army

Council, he would have received support? I feel equally sure that,

supposing the Army Council had refused to listen to his urgings, he

would have received satisfaction on representing the matter to the

Committee of Imperial Defence.

As a matter of fact, it was only after more than one representation

made by General von Donop that G.H.Q. agreed to take some

high-explosive ammunition, and so it was introduced--in small

quantities--very soon after fighting began, and when the urgent need

of it had become apparent. But the output was necessarily very

restricted for a long time, and no amount of talk and of bounce, such

as the Minister of Munitions was wont to indulge in from the summer of

1915 onwards for several months, would have increased it. Here was a

case of an entirely new article, for the provision of which no steps

had been taken before the war. There happened to be special technical

difficulties in the way of producing the article, _e.g._ the hardness

of the steel necessary for this type of shell, and devising a safe and

effective fuse. There is, moreover, one matter in connection with this

question of high-explosive for our 18-pounders which should be

mentioned, but to which no reference finds a place in "_1914_."

Some months after this ammunition first came to be used in the field

it began to give serious trouble. Something was wrong. The shell took

to bursting in the bore of the gun and to bulging, or wholly

destroying, the piece, although these disasters fortunately did not

generally involve loss of life. Between August and October 1915, no

less than sixty-four of our 18-pounders were thus rendered

unserviceable--very nearly double the number lost during the retreat

from Mons, and considerably more than the complement of one of our

divisions. We could not comfortably afford this drain upon our supply

of field-guns at a time when New Army divisions were still in some

cases gun-less, and when the Territorial division were still armed

with the virtually obsolete 15-pounder. Accidents of this character,

moreover, have a bad effect upon the personnel of batteries, for the

soldier does not like his weapon, be it a rifle, or a hand-grenade, or

a sabre that crumples up, to play tricks on him. The difficulty was

not got over until elaborate experiments, immediately set on foot by

the War Office (which still dealt with design and investigation,

although actual manufacture was by this time in the hands of the

Ministry of Munitions), had been carried out. But before the end of

the year it had been established that the failures were due to faults

in manufacture, and from that time forward these _contretemps_ became

extremely rare in the case of the 18-pounder. The question caused

acute anxiety at G.H.Q. and in the War Office for some weeks; the

French had had a very similar experience, but on an even worse scale.

The difficulty arose just after the Ministry of Munitions became

responsible for manufacture, and I do not suggest that the destruction

of the guns was the fault of that department, for the ammunition used

in the field during that period and for many months later was

ammunition ordered by the Master-General of the Ordnance. But similar

trouble arose later in the case of the field howitzer; there were no

less than 25 of these damaged between April and June 1916, nearly a

year after the Munitions Ministry had been set up.

It should be mentioned that some other statements regarding munitions

which appear in "_1914_" are inaccurate. In discussing Lord

Kitchener's memorandum written at the beginning of January 1915, which

intimated that H.M. Government vetoed the Belgian coast project, Lord

French declares that two or three months later, viz. in March and

April, "large train-loads of ammunition--heavy, medium, and

light--passed by the rear of the army in France _en route_ for

Marseilles for shipment to the Dardanelles." The Admiralty may

possibly have sent some ammunition by that route at that time, but it

is extremely unlikely. As for munitions for Sir I. Hamilton's troops,

the Dardanelles force did not land till the end of April, and its war

material was sent by long sea from the United Kingdom; very little

would have been gained, even in time, by adopting the route across

France. No great quantities of ammunition were sent from the United

Kingdom across country at any juncture to the Gallipoli Peninsula, but

G.H.Q. in France was once called upon to sacrifice some of its

reserve, and Lord French makes especial reference to this incident.

He says that on the 9th of May--the date on which he launched his

political intrigue--he was directed by the Secretary of State for War

to despatch 20 per cent of his reserve supply of ammunition to the

Dardanelles. Now, what are the facts? Sir I. Hamilton had urgently

demanded ammunition for a contemplated offensive. A vessel that was

loading up at Marseilles would reach the Aegean in time. To pass the

consignment through from the United Kingdom (where a large supply had

just come to hand from America) would mean missing the ship. G.H.Q.

were therefore instructed to forward 20,000 field-gun rounds and 2000

field-howitzer rounds to the Mediterranean port, and were at the same

time assured that the rounds would straightway, over and above the

normal nightly allowance sent across the Channel, be made good from

home. Sent off by G.H.Q. under protest, the field-gun rounds were

replaced _within twenty-four hours_ and the others within four days,

but of the engagement entered into, and kept, by the War Office,

"_1914_" says not one word. Lord French was evidently completely

misinformed on this matter.

It should be added that the amount of heavy artillery included in the

Dardanelles Expeditionary Force was negligible, and that the amount of

medium artillery was relatively very small. Large train-loads of

ammunition for such pieces were never required, nor sent. Inaccurate

statements of this kind tend to discredit much of Lord French's severe

criticism of Lord Kitchener and the department of the Master-General

of the Ordnance, for which there is small justification in any case.

One point made in the "Ammunition" chapter in "_1914_" deserves a word

of comment. Lord French mentions that the supply of shell received at

the front in May proved to be less than half of the War Office

estimate. That kind of thing went on after supply had been transferred

from the War Office to the Ministry of Munitions. I had something to

say to munitions at a subsequent period of the war, as will be touched

upon later, and used to see the returns and estimates. The Munitions

Ministry was invariably behind its estimates (although seldom, if

ever, to the extent of over 50 per cent) right up to the end. There

you have our old friend, the Man of Business, with his intolerable

swank. Some old-established private factories, as well as some new

factories set up during the war, were in the habit of promising more

than they could possibly perform. Certain of them were, indeed, ready

to promise almost anything. Their behaviour, I happen to know, caused

some of our Allies who placed contracts with them and were let in,

extreme annoyance. The names of one or two of them possibly stink in

the nostrils of certain foreign countries to this day, although that

sort of thing may also be common abroad. Those in authority came to

realize in the later stages of the war how little reliance could be

placed on promises, and they became sceptical. The Ministry of

Munitions, one can well imagine, discounted the estimates that they

got from their manufacturing establishments. The War Office certainly

discounted the estimates that it got from the Ministry of Munitions.

Commanders-in-chief in the field consequently no longer miscalculated

what they might expect, to the same extent as Sir J. French did in May

1915.

I only became directly associated with armament questions in the

summer of 1916, and then came for the first time into contact with the

Ministry of Munitions. Such questions are matters of opinion, but it

always seemed to me that this Department of State would have done

better had it stuck to its proper job--that of providing what the Army

and the Air Service required. The capture of design and inspection by

the Ministry may have been unavoidable, seeing that this new

organization was improvised actually during the course of a great war

and under conditions of emergency; but the principle is radically

wrong. It is for the department which wants a thing to say what it

wants and to see that it gets it. As a matter of fact, the Munitions

Ministry occasionally went even farther, and actually allocated goods

required by the Army to other purposes. When a well-known and popular

politician, after spending some three years or so at the front with

credit to himself, took up a dignified appointment in Armament

Buildings, the first thing that he did was to promise a trifle of 400

tanks to the French without any reference to the military authorities

at all. Still, who would blame him? His action, when all is said and

done, was merely typical of that "every man for himself, and the devil

take the hindmost" attitude assumed by latter-day neoteric Government

institutions. But even the most phlegmatic member of the community

will feel upset when the trousers which he has ordered are consigned

by his tailor to somebody else, and on this occasion the War Office

did gird up its loins and remonstrate in forcible terms.

With regard to the War Office and munitions, it only remains to be

said again in conclusion that the country was never told the truth

about this subject until some months after the armistice, when the

nation had ceased to care. Never was it told till then, nor were the

forces which had been fighting in the field told, that the great

increase in the output of guns, howitzers, machine-guns, and

ammunition, which took place from the autumn of 1915 onwards up to

just before the Battle of the Somme, was the achievement, not of the

Ministry of Munitions but of the War Office. The Munitions Ministry in

due course did splendid work. Chancellor of the Exchequer become

lord-paramount of a great spending Department of State, its chief was

on velvet. "Copper" turned footpad, he knew the ropes, he could flout

the Treasury--and he did. But it is a pity that unwarrantable claims

should have been put forward on behalf of the department in not

irresponsible quarters at a time when they could not be denied, claims

which have tended to bring the department as a whole into undeserved

disrepute amongst those who know the facts.

CHAPTER XI

COUNCILS, COMMITTEES, AND CABINETS

The responsibilities of experts at War Councils -- The Rt. Hon.

A. Fisher's views -- Discussion as to whether these meet the case

-- Under the War Cabinet system, the question does not arise --

The Committee of Imperial Defence merged in the War Council early

in the conflict -- The Dardanelles Committee -- Finding a formula

-- Mr. Churchill backs up Sir I. Hamilton -- The spirit of

compromise -- The Cabinet carrying on _pari passu_ with the

Dardanelles Committee -- Personal experiences with the Cabinet --

The War Council which succeeded the Dardanelles Committee -- An

illustration of the value of the War Cabinet system -- Some of

its inconveniences -- Ministers -- Mr. Henderson -- Sir E. Carson

-- Mr. Bonar Law -- The question of resignation of individuals --

Lord Curzon -- Mr. Churchill -- Mr. Lloyd George.

Before proceeding to refer to a few personal experiences in connection

with the Ministerial pow-wows at which the conduct of the war was

decided, there is one matter of some public importance to which a

reference will not be out of place. That matter is the question of

responsibility imposed upon experts at gatherings of this kind. Are

they to wait until they are spoken to, no matter what folly is on the

tapis, or are they to intervene without invitation when things become

serious? My own experience is that on these occasions Ministers have

such a lot to say that the expert is likely to be overlooked in the

babel unless he flings himself into the fray.

The point is suggested by the "Conclusions" in the "First Report" of

the Dardanelles Commission. The Commissioners gave it as their opinion

that at the time of the initiation of the venture against the Straits,

"the Naval Advisers should have expressed their views in Council,

whether asked or not, if they considered that the project which the

Council was about to adopt was impracticable from a naval point of

view." The Commissioners also gave the decision on this point in other

words, but to the same effect, in another paragraph. Mr. Fisher, who

represented the Commonwealth of Australia on the Commission, while

subscribing to the Report in general, emphatically demurred to the

view taken by his brother Commissioners on this point, and Sir T.

Mackenzie, who represented New Zealand, agreed with Mr. Fisher

although he did not express himself quite so forcibly on the subject.

Mr. Fisher wrote: "I dissent in the strongest terms from any

suggestion that the departmental advisers of a Minister in his company

at a Council meeting should express any views at all other than to the

Minister and through him, unless specifically invited to do so. I am

of opinion it would seal the fate of responsible government if

servants of the State were to share the responsibility of Ministers to

Parliament, and to the people on matters of public policy." Which view

is the right one, that of the seven Commissioners representing the

United Kingdom, or that of the two Commissioners representing the

young nations afar off?

The answer to the question can perhaps best be put in the form of

another. Does the country exist for the Government, or does the

Government exist for the country? Now, if the country merely exists

for the Government, then Mr. Fisher's contention is unanswerable.

Whether it receives the opinion of the expert or not, the Government

is responsible. For a Minister to have an expert, within his own

Department of State and therefore his subordinate, blurting out views

contrary to his own is likely to be a sore trial to that Minister's

dignity, and this is not altered by the fact that the expert is likely

to be infinitely better qualified to express opinions on the subject

than he is. Supposing that the War Council, or the Cabinet, or

whatever the body happens to be, ignores or is unaware of the opinion

of the experts, and that it lands the country in some hideous mess in

consequence, it can always be called to account for the lapse. The

doctrine of responsibility which is regarded as of such paramount

importance will be fully upheld--and what more do you want? Gibbets

can be erected, the Ministers who have got the country into the mess

can be hanged in a row, and a fat lot of good that will do towards

getting the country out of the mess.

But if, on the contrary, the Government merely exists for the country,

then in times of emergency it is the bounden duty of everybody, and

particularly is it the duty of those who are really competent to do

so, to help the Government and to keep it out of trouble if they can.

One feels cold inside conjuring up the spectacle of a pack of experts

who have been called in to be present at a meeting of the War Council

or the Cabinet, sitting there mute and inarticulate like cataleptics

while the members of the Government taking part in the colloquy embark

on some course that is fraught with danger to the State. _Salus populi

suprema lex_. Surely the security of the commonwealth is of infinitely

greater moment than any doctrine of responsibility of Ministers,

mortals who are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Indeed--one says it

with all respect for a distinguished representative of one of the

great British dominions overseas--it looks as though Mr. Fisher did

not quite realize the position of the expert, and assumed that if the

expert gave his advice when asked it made him responsible to the

country. The expert is present, not in an executive, but in a

consultative capacity. He decides nothing. The Ministers present

decide, following his advice, ignoring his advice, failing to ask for

his advice, or mistakenly imagining that the expert concurs with them

as he keeps silence, according to the circumstances of the case.

Naturally, the expert should try to induce the head of his department

to listen to his views on the subject before the subject ever comes

before the Cabinet or the War Council. But if the Minister takes a

contrary view, if the matter is one of importance and if the Minister

at the meeting fails to acquaint his colleagues that he is at variance

with the expert, or again if the question crops up unexpectedly and

the expert has had no opportunity of expressing an opinion, then the

duty of the expert to the country comes first and he should say his

say. It may be suggested that he ought to resign. Perhaps he ought

to--afterwards. But the matter of vital importance is not whether he

resigns, but whether he warns the Government of the danger. The

country is the first consideration, not the Government nor yet the

expert.

One great advantage of the War Cabinet system introduced by Mr. Lloyd

George was that there was none of this sort of flapdoodle. At a War

Cabinet meeting the expert never hesitated to express his opinion,

whether he was asked for it or not. The work that I was doing in the

later stages of the war did not involve me in problems of major

importance, but when summoned to a War Cabinet meeting I never boggled

over giving my views as to what concerned my own job. I have heard Sir

W. Robertson, when he thought it necessary to do so, giving his

opinion similarly concerning questions of great moment, and nobody

dreamt of objecting to the intervention.

The Director of Military Intelligence was, more or less _ex officio_,

a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence in pre-war days, and

consequently I attended one meeting of this body shortly after

mobilization. There was a huge gathering--the thing was a regular

duma--and a prolonged discussion, which as far as I could make out led

nowhere and which in any case dealt with matters that nowise concerned

me, took place. Those were busy times, and, seeing that Lord Kitchener

and Sir C. Douglas attended these meetings as a matter of course, I

asked to be excused thenceforward. The Committee of Imperial Defence

was obviously not a suitable assemblage to treat of the conduct of the

war, seeing that it was only invested with consultative and not with

executive functions, and that it bore on its books individuals such as

Mr. Balfour and Lord Esher, who were not members of the Government,

nor yet officials. It therefore at a comparatively early date gave

place to the War Council, which captured its secretariat (a priceless

asset), and which later on became transformed into the Dardanelles

Committee. The Government did not, however, wholly lose the benefit of

Mr. Balfour's experience and counsel. One day--it must have been in

December--there was an informal discussion at the War Office in Lord

Kitchener's room, he being away in France at the time, in which

General Wolfe-Murray and I took part, and besides Mr. Lloyd George,

Mr. Churchill and Sir E. Grey--I do not think that Mr. Asquith was

there--Mr. Balfour was present.

Up till the early days of May, I attended no War Councils. Very soon

after that, the Coalition Government was formed, and thereupon the War

Council, which had been quite big enough goodness knows, developed

into the Dardanelles Committee of twelve members, of whom, excluding

Lord Kitchener, six were members of the former Liberal Government, and

five were Unionists. Sir E. Carson only came in in August, making the

number of representatives from the two factions equal and raising the

total to the lucky number of thirteen. What object was supposed to be

fulfilled by making the War Council such a bloated institution it is

hard to say. Almost the only members of the Cabinet who counted and

who were not included on its roll were Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Long.

Be that as it may, the result was virtually to constitute the

Dardanelles Committee the Cabinet for general purposes of the war, and

to lead to its dealing with many matters quite distinct from the

prosecution of the campaign for the Straits. I have a vivid

recollection of one meeting, which probably took place late in June

(Lord Kitchener was not present), and at which the attitude to be

assumed by us with reference to Bulgaria and Greece, particularly

Bulgaria, was discussed. Sir E. Grey wanted a "formula" devised to

indicate to the Sofia Government what that attitude was; as neither he

nor anybody else knew what the attitude was, it was not easy to devise

the formula. Formula is an odious word in any case, recalling, as it

does, algebraical horrors of a forgotten past; but everybody present

wrote out formulae, and dialecticians had the time of their lives. Mr.

Balfour's version was eventually chosen as the most felicitous. But

the worst of it was that this masterpiece of appropriate

phrase-mongering did not bring in the Bulgars on our side. The

triumphant campaign of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front somehow

proved a more potent factor in deciding Tsar Ferdinand as to what

course to pursue, than a whole libraryful of formulae could ever have

effected.

At another meeting, at which Lord Kitchener likewise was not present,

a marked and disagreeable tendency to criticize Sir I. Hamilton for

his ill-success made itself apparent. I was the only representative of

the army present, and it was manifestly impossible for an officer

miles junior to Sir Ian to butt into a discussion of that kind. But

Mr. Churchill spoke up manfully and with excellent effect. The gist of

his observations amounted to this: If you commit a military commander

to the undertaking of an awkward enterprise and then refuse him the

support that he requires, you have no business to abuse him behind his

back if he fails. That seemed to me to fit the situation like a glove;

it did not leave much more to be said on the point, and no more was

said, thanks to the First Lord's timely remonstrance.

There was any amount of chatter at these musters; but on the other

hand one seldom seemed to find oneself much forrarder. That is the

worst of getting together a swarm of thinkers who are furnished with

the gift of the gab and are brimming over with brains. Nothing

happens. If a decision was by any chance arrived at, it was of a

non-committal nature. The spirit of compromise asserted itself and the

Committee adopted a middle course, a course which no doubt fits in

well with many of the problems with which governments in ordinary

times have to wrestle, but which does not constitute a good way of

conducting war.

The full Cabinet of twenty-three was carrying on _pari passu_ with the

Dardanelles Committee. It did undoubtedly take some sort of hand in

the prosecution of the war from time to time, because one day I was

summoned to stand by at 10 Downing Street when it was sitting, soon

after the Coalition Government was formed and when Lord Kitchener

happened to be away, on the chance of my being wanted. They were

hardly likely to require my services in connection with matters other

than military. After an interminable wait--during the luncheon hour,

too--Mr. Arthur Henderson, who was a very recent acquisition, emerged

stealthily from the council chamber after the manner of the

conspirator in an Adelphi drama, and intimated that they thought that

they would be able to get on without me. In obedience to an unwritten

law, the last-joined member was always expected to do odd jobs of this

kind, just as at some schools the bottom boy of the form is called

upon by the form-master to perform certain menial offices _pro bono

publico_.

The mystery observed in connection with these Cabinet meetings was not

unimpressive. But the accepted procedure--without a secretary present

to keep record of what was done and with apparently no proper minutes

kept by anybody--was the very negation of sound administration and of

good government. Such practice would have been out of date in the days

of the Heptarchy. Furthermore it did not fulfil its purpose in respect

to concealment, because whenever the gathering by any accident made up

its mind about anything that was in the least interesting, everybody

outside knew all about it within twenty-four hours. And in spite of

all the weird precautions, I actually was present once for a very

brief space of time at one of these momentous sittings. It came about

after this wise. On the rising of a Dardanelles Committee meeting, one

of the Ministers who had attended drew me into a corner to enquire

concerning a point that had arisen. There was movement going on in the

room, people coming and going, but we were intent on our confabulation

and took no notice. Suddenly there was an awe-inspiring silence and

then Mr. Asquith was heard to lift up his voice. "Good Lord!"

ejaculated my Minister (just like that--they are quite human when

taken off their guard), "the Cabinet's sitting!" and until back, safe

within the War Office portals, I almost seemed to feel a heavy hand on

my shoulder haling me off to some oubliette, never more to be heard of

in the outer world.

A less teeming War Council than the Dardanelles Committee was

substituted for that assemblage about October 1915, and I only

attended one or two of its meetings. Sir A. Murray was by that time

installed as C.I.G.S., and things were on a more promising footing

within the War Office. It was this new form of War Council which was

thrown over by the Cabinet with reference to the evacuation of the

Gallipoli Peninsula, as related on pp. 103, 104. As far as one could

judge, when more or less of an outsider in connection with the general

conduct of operations but none the less a good deal behind the scenes,

this type of War Council, constituted out of the Ministers who were

directly connected with the operations, besides the Prime Minister,

Foreign Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the First Sea

Lord and C.I.G.S. always in attendance, worked very well during the

greater part of 1916. But Mr. Lloyd George's plan of a War Cabinet, in

spite of certain inevitable drawbacks to such an arrangement, was

undoubtedly the right one for times of grave national emergency. Its

accessibility and its readiness to deal with problems in a practical

spirit are illustrated by the following incident within my own

experience.

We had got ourselves into a condition of chaos in [p.216] connection with

the problem of Greek supplies at the beginning of 1918. There was an

extremely vague agreement with the French, an unsigned agreement

entered into in haste by representatives on our side of little

authority, under which we were supposed to provide all sorts of things

for the Hellenes. But the whole business was extremely irregular and

it was in a state of hopeless confusion--it will be referred to again

in a later chapter. In the War Office alone, several departments and

branches were concerned, including my own up to a certain point. The

Ministries of Munitions and Shipping were in the affair as well,

together with the Board of Trade, the Foreign Office, and last but not

least, the Treasury. But what was everybody's business was nobody's

business. Each department involved declared that some other one must

take the matter up and get things unravelled, and at last in a fit of

exasperation, although my branch was only a 100 to 3 outsider in the

matter, I took the bull by the horns and wrote privately to Sir M.

Hankey, asking him to put the subject of Greek Supplies on the Agenda

for the War Cabinet on some early date and to summon me to be on hand,

which he did. When the matter came up, Mr. Lloyd George enquired of me

what the trouble was. I told him that we were in a regular muddle,

that we could not get on, that several Departments of State were in

the thing, but that it hardly seemed a matter for the War Cabinet to

trouble itself with. Could not one of its members take charge, get us

together, and give us the authority we required for dealing with the

problem? Mr. Lloyd George at once asked Lord Milner to take the

question up, not more than five minutes of the War Cabinet's time was

wasted, and within a very few hours Lord Milner had got the business

on a proper footing and we all knew where we were.

Now, supposing that instead of the War Cabinet it had been a case of

that solemn, time-honoured, ineffectual council composed of all the

principal Ministers of the Crown, gathered together in Downing Street

to discuss matters which the majority of those present never know any

more about than the man in the moon, what would have happened? We of

the War Office might among us, with decent luck, have managed to prime

our own private Secretary of State, and might have sent him off to the

Cabinet meeting with a knowledge of his brief. But, unless the

Ministers at the heads of the other Departments of State concerned had

been got hold of beforehand and told what to do and to say, they would

among the lot of them have made confusion worse confounded. If by any

chance a decision had then been arrived at, it would almost inevitably

have been a perfectly preposterous one, totally inapplicable to the

question that was actually at issue.

A summons to attend a War Cabinet meeting was not, however, an unmixed

joy. There was always an agenda paper; but it was apt to turn out a

delusion and a snare. The Secretariat did their very best to calculate

when the different subjects down for discussion on the paper would

come up, and they would warn one accordingly. But they often were out

in their estimate, and they had always to be on the safe side. Some

quite simple and apparently straightforward subject would take a

perfectly unconscionable time to dispose of, while, on the other hand,

an apparently extremely knotty problem might be solved within a few

minutes and so throw the time-table out of gear. The result was that

in the course of months one spent a good many hours, off and on,

lurking in the antechamber in 10 Downing Street.

Still, there was always a good fire in winter time, and one found

oneself hobnobbing, while waiting, with all sorts and conditions of

men. There would be Ministers holding high office but not included in

the Big Five (or was it Six?), emissaries just back from some centre

of disturbance and excitement abroad, people who dealt with wheat

production and distribution, knights of industry called in over some

special problem, and persons purporting to be masters of

finance--which nobody understands, least of all the experts. Who could

possibly, under any circumstances, be angry with Mr. Balfour? But he

was occasionally something of a trial when one was patiently awaiting

one's turn. Although the Agenda paper might make it plain that no

subject was coming up with which the Foreign Office could possibly be

in the remotest degree connected, he would be descried sloping past

and going straight into the Council Chamber, as if he had bought the

place. Then out would come one of the Secretary gang. The Foreign

Minister had turned up, and was setting them an entirely unexpected

conundrum inside; the best thing one could do was to clear out of

that, as the point which one had been summoned to give one's views

about had not now the slightest chance of coming before the Cabinet

that day.

At the various forms of War Council at which the prosecution of the

war was debated, one was necessarily brought into contact with a

number of politicians and statesmen, and was enabled to note their

peculiarities and to watch their methods. I never to my knowledge saw

Lord Beaconsfield; but in the late 'eighties and early 'nineties Mr.

Gladstone was sometimes to be met in the streets, and, even if one

thought that he ought to be boiled, one none the less felt mildly

excited at the spectacle. That aphorism, "familiarity breeds

contempt," does put the point a little crudely; but the fact remains

that when you are brought into contact with people of this kind, about

whom there is such a lot of talk in the newspapers, they turn out to

be very much like everybody else. Needless to say, they will give

tongue to any extent, but, apart from that, they may even be something

of a disappointment to those who anticipate great things of them.

Still, it is only right to acknowledge that the majority of Ministers

met with during the Great War were sensible enough in respect to

military matters. The amateur strategist was fortunately the exception

in these circles, and not the rule. Most of them picked up the

fundamental facts in connection with any situation that presented

itself quite readily; they grasped elementary principles when these

were explained to them and they were able to keep those principles in

mind. But there were goats as well as sheep. You might just as well

have started dancing jigs to a milestone as have tried to get into the

heads of one or two of them the elementary fact that the conduct of

war cannot be decided on small-scale maps but is a matter of stolid

and unemotional calculation, that imagination is a deadly peril when

unaccompanied by knowledge, and that army corps and divisions cannot

be switched about ashore or afloat as though they were taxi-cabs or

hydroplanes.

Mr. Henderson shaped well when military matters were in debate; he

looked portentous and he held his tongue. Then there was Sir E. Carson

who, during the few weeks that he figured on the Dardanelles Committee,

was an undeniable asset. His interjections of "Mr. Asquith, we really

must make up our minds," uttered with an accent not unfamiliar to one

who had passed youthful days in the vicinity of Dublin, and

accompanied by a moody stare such as his victim in the witness-box

must find rather disconcerting when under cross-examination at the

hands of the famous K.C., had no great effect perhaps. But the motive

was unexceptionable. He and Mr. Bonar Law used to sit together and to

press for decisions, and it was unfortunate that Sir Edward resigned

when he did. Mr. Bonar Law was within an ace of resigning likewise

very shortly afterwards. He invited me to go over to the Colonial

Office to see him and to talk over matters, and I expressed an earnest

hope that he would stick to the ship. An artist in letter-writing (as

was shown in his momentous epistle written on behalf of the Unionist

leaders when Mr. Asquith's Cabinet were in two minds at the beginning

of August 1914), his memorandum which is quoted in the "Final Report"

of the Dardanelles Commission, and in which he insisted upon the

advice of the military authorities with reference to the evacuation

of the Gallipoli Peninsula being followed, indicates how fortunate it

was that he remained at his post.

The truth is that resignations of the individual Minister seldom do

any good from the point of view of the public interest, except when

the individual Minister concerned happens to be unfit for his

position--and then he generally seems immune from that "unwanted

doggie" sort of feeling from which less illustrious persons are apt to

suffer when they are _de trop_. The cases mentioned on p. 144 in

connection with the Army Council stood on an entirely different

footing. When a body of officials resign, or threaten to resign, their

action cannot be ignored; in the second case mentioned the mere threat

sufficed. Lord Fisher paid me one of his meteoric visits on the

morning that he submitted his resignation to Mr. Asquith, and he

confided his reasons to me; the reasons were good, but it seemed

doubtful whether they were quite good enough to justify the taking of

so drastic a step.

There was no more edifying and compelling personality amongst the

party who were in the habit of taking the floor in 10 Downing Street

in 1915 than Lord Curzon. He, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Lloyd George

might almost have been called rivals for the rôle of _prima ballerina

assoluta_. The remarks that fell from his lips, signalized as they

ever were by a faultless phraseology and delivered with a prunes,

prisms and potatoes diction, seldom failed to lift the discussion on

to a higher plane, to waft his hearers on to the serene hill-tops of

thought, to awaken sublime sensations in all present such as the

spectacle of some noble mountain panorama will summon up in the

meditations of the most phlegmatic. Mr. Churchill, ever lucid, ever

cogent, ever earnest, ever forceful, was wont to be so convincing that

he would almost cause listeners to forget for the moment that, were

the particular project which just then happened to be uppermost in his

mind to be carried into execution, any small hopes which remained of

our ever winning the war would inevitably be blotted out for good and

all. As for Mr. Lloyd George in drab days before he became First

Minister of the Crown in spite of his superhuman efforts to avoid that

undesired consummation, he always loved to make his voice heard, and

he always succeeded--just as a canary will in a roomful of chattering

women.

CHAPTER XII

SOME INTER-ALLIES CONFERENCES

The Conference with the Italians in Paris in April-May 1915 --

Its constitution -- Italians anxious that Allies should deliver

big offensive simultaneously with advance of Italian army --

Impossibility of giving a guarantee -- Difficulties over the

naval proposals -- Banquet given by M. Millerand at the War

Office -- A visit to the front -- Impressions -- Mr. Churchill

turns up unexpectedly -- A conference with General Joffre at

Chantilly over Salonika -- Its unsatisfactory character --

Admiral Gamble races "Grandpère," and suffers discomfiture -- A

distinguished party proceed to Paris -- A formal conference with

the French Government -- Messrs. Asquith, Grey and Lloyd George

as linguists -- The French attitude over Salonika -- Sir W.

Robertson gives his views -- The decision -- Dinner at the Élysée

-- Return to London -- Mr. Lloyd George and the soldiers on the

Boulogne jetty -- Points of the destroyer as a yacht -- Mr.

Balfour and Sir W. Robertson afloat -- A chatty dinner on our

side of the Channel -- Difficulty over Russian munitions owing to

a Chantilly conference -- A conference at the War Office -- Mr.

Lloyd George as chairman -- M. Mantoux.

The first meeting of importance with representatives of the Allies at

which I was present took place in Paris at the end of April 1915, and

has already been referred to on p. 63. Sir H. Jackson and I were sent

over, as representing respectively the Admiralty and the War Office,

to take part in a secret conference that was to be held between

French, Russian, and British naval and military delegates on the one

side, and Italian naval and military delegates on the other side in

connection with Italy's entry into the war as an associate of the

Entente. That Italy was to join the Allies had already been arranged

secretly between the four governments, and it was understood that she

was to open hostilities in the latter part of May. The purpose of the

Conference was to permit of the situation being discussed, and formal

naval and military conventions were to be drawn up between the

contracting Powers. Sir Henry and I were accompanied by small staffs,

and we put up at the Ritz in the Place Vendôme.

M. Millerand, who was French War Minister at the time, presided at the

Conference which assembled in the War Office, and he made an ideal

chairman--the French are always admirable at managing such functions.

The principal French military delegate was General Pellé, General

Joffre's Chief of Staff; the Russians were represented by their

Military Attaché in Paris, Colonel Count Ignatieff, and the principal

Italian military delegate was a colonel (whose name I cannot recall),

a most attractive and evidently an extremely capable soldier, who

unhappily was killed within a few months when in command of a brigade

in one of the early fights near Gorizia. In so far as framing the

military convention was concerned, that part of the proceedings gave

little trouble. The Italian representatives, it is true, were anxious

that the Allies should undertake to embark upon an offensive on the

greatest possible scale practicable, simultaneously with the Italian

army crossing the frontier about the Isonzo; but General Pellé and I

could give no guarantee to that effect, the more so seeing that a

Franco-British offensive had already, as it was, been decided upon to

start in the Bethune-Vimy region within a few days and before the

Italian army would be ready. One had a pretty shrewd suspicion that

there was no opening whatever for an offensive on the Eastern Front in

view of our Russian Allies' grave munitions difficulties, although the

French seemed strangely unaware of the nakedness of the land in that

quarter; still, it was no part of the game to hint at joints in our

harness of that kind to the Italian representatives. Ignatieff, bluff

and cheery, was careful not to commit himself on the subject. The end

of it was that our military convention amounted to little more than an

agreement that we were all jolly fine fellows, accompanied by

cordial expressions of good-will and of a determination on the part of

the four contracting Powers to do their best and to stick together.

The naval side of the problem, on the other hand, was beset by

pitfalls, and that part of the business was not satisfactorily

disposed of for several days.

Even to a landsman like myself, it was apparent that the Italian

conception of war afloat in the year of grace 1915 was open to

criticism. Our new friends contemplated employing their fleet very

freely as an auxiliary to their army in its advance along the littoral

towards Trieste, a theory of naval operations which came upon one with

something of a shock at the very start. Pola and other well-sheltered

bowers for under-water craft lie pretty handy to the maritime district

in which King Victor's troops were going to take the field. For

battleships and cruisers to be pottering about in those waters serving

out succour to the soldiers on shore, succour which would in all

probability be of no great account in any case, suggested that those

battleships and cruisers would be transmogrified into submarines at a

very early stage of the proceedings. One wondered if the Ministry of

Marine away south by the Tiber had heard the tragic tale of the

_Hogue_, the _Cressy_ and the _Aboukir_. Nor was that all. The Italian

naval delegates put forward requests that fairly substantial

assistance in the shape of war-craft of various types should be

afforded them within the Adriatic by the French and ourselves.

All this struck even an outsider like myself as somewhat

unsatisfactory, and that was clearly the view which Sir H. Jackson

took. For, in some disorder, he let slip an observation to the effect

that it looked like the recently acquired collaborator with the

Entente being rather a nuisance than otherwise. The rendering of this

expression of opinion of the Admiral's into French at the hands of our

Naval Attaché in Paris (Captain Hodges) was a masterpiece of

diplomatic camouflage. In the end the Italian sailors were obliged to

ask for an adjournment to allow of their communicating with Rome,

and, if I recollect aright, the principal one of them had to proceed

home to discuss the question at headquarters. All this took up time,

and we did not finally get the conventions signed for nearly a

fortnight.