Against this atmosphere Mr. Lloyd George persistently battled; and in the early weeks of April he made a fresh appeal for further speeding up. The Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) agreed. On April 13th (1915) he appointed a strong Munitions Committee, known as the Treasury Committee, consisting of Ministers, civil servants and experts, with Mr. Lloyd George in the chair.[[83]]
That Committee had no executive powers. It could only co-ordinate departments, and make suggestions. It was no more than a departmental Committee; but, in spite of this shortcoming it was able to give valuable advice, much of which was acted upon. It supplied new ideas. It was often able to meet special emergencies.
But from the very beginning this Committee suffered from one grave, paralysing defect: it could obtain no full or comprehensive view of the needs and demands of the war. Perhaps the chiefs of the War Office did not know themselves. In the hurry and bustle of war perhaps it is not incredible they had no leisure to take the larger and longer view. But in a long war that view was indispensable to action. The result of that ignorance, therefore, was fatal to this Committee. It never knew enough to act or decide with effect. Lord Kitchener may have had his reasons; but the fact stands out that he refrained from arming this important Munitions Committee of April and May, 1915, with the full knowledge necessary for real power.
At this point an astonishing thing occurred. The Western Army took the matter into their own hands.
There are many things that fighting men will endure—incredible tortures, surpassing those of the early martyrs. But there is one thing which always tries them beyond the limit: that is to be hit without the power of hitting back—to be shelled without being able to shell. Such was now (in April and May, 1915) the intolerable situation of the men under General French’s command in France.[[84]] They decided that it was not their duty to accept this cruel fate without some effort to find a cure.
They found their applications misunderstood, ignored, postponed. They realised that Ministers were not allowed to know the truth. They gathered from his public utterance at Newcastle on April 20th[[85]] that the truth was being concealed even from the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) himself. They perceived that the public were blind-folded. They determined to take steps to open their eyes.
With this design and object, the Headquarters Staff in France invited certain famous journalists and publicists to the front to witness for themselves the results of the lack of proper shells in the attack on the Aubers ridge.[[86]] Most of those visitors found themselves helpless in the grip of a double censorship—in France and in England. One of them, however, the famous military correspondent of the Times,[[87]] wrote his despatch on the spot and sent it through the censorship of the field of battle, severe indeed, but on this occasion, perhaps, a little more friendly. In this way, and thanks to the historic prestige of the great organ which published it, there appeared in the Times of May 14th, 1915, that famous message from the front, “mutilated and twice censored,”[[88]] which itself proved so powerful a petard.
“The want of an unlimited supply of high explosive was a fatal bar to our success”—that was the verdict of the Times correspondent; and it was confirmed by every observer and every soldier at the front, including the soldier members of the House of Commons. Once the word was uttered in public, the floodgates were opened. It was in vain that the Government tried to stem the torrent of evidence. Lord Kitchener rose on May 18th to make a statement in the House of Lords; but in that speech he showed that strange habit of the unexpected which baulked even his friends. For, instead of denying, he practically admitted the indictment, and for the first time stated in public what seemed to contradict the Newcastle utterance of the Prime Minister—that there had been “undoubtedly considerable delay in producing the material.”
This was indeed a mild way of stating the true facts. These continued now to pour through from the front with all the indecency of truth emancipated. The order-paper of the House of Commons began to bristle with questions and threats of debate; and it was only on the plea of public emergency that the Government postponed crisis.
On the following day Mr. Lloyd George received information which more than confirmed the statement of the Times correspondent. He realised with amazement that the Munitions Committee had been kept in ignorance of essentials; that the mainspring had been missing from the watch. He determined to resign from a function so void of power; and on May 19th he wrote a letter announcing his decision, and giving his grave and weighty reasons. He refused to remain chairman of a Committee which had no real executive power.