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