He envisaged the problem in two ways—strategy and numbers. He saw the Allied Forces faced by overwhelming myriads of Teuton troops, combined under one central command. To resist this assault he was more than ever of the opinion that the defenders also must be placed under one command, and he carried his faith to the full logic of his conclusion. In April he agreed to the appointment of General Foch as supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. It was a step involving great risks and great faith. Fortunately Sir Douglas (now Lord) Haig agreed with Mr. Lloyd George, and played the game to the full, like the great soldier he was. Otherwise the thing could not have been done. The trial came for the British when, as the crisis deepened, Marshal Foch began to exercise his full powers, and to withdraw from the direction of the coast great British forces which had been placed there in reserve for the protection of the British line and the security of the Channel.
Like all great commanders, Foch himself had to take risks and to meet the German concentrations by great concentrations on his own side. For this purpose he had to wield full power over both British and French Armies, and he exercised it to the full in the great battles of that summer. It was an anxious time for the British Government. But Mr. Lloyd George had taken the full measure of Foch as a soldier: he fully believed in him, and he went to the whole extent of his faith. A working arrangement was come to by which Mr. Lloyd George went over to meet Clemenceau and Foch at Paris periodically, and the supreme conduct of the war was now in the hands of these three men. So far for the strategy which governed the great battles of that summer.
Then for numbers. Mr. Lloyd George saw in a moment that, unless drastic and exceptional measures were taken the Allied Forces would simply be snowed under by the hosts of the enemy. To meet this danger the natural counter-measure was to throw across the Channel all the troops in England sufficiently trained to go into the shock of battle. For this purpose he was obliged to suspend all the usual age limits from active foreign service and to send across the Channel the great army of youths enlisted under the Conscription Act, and hitherto prepared only for home defence. These great forces streamed across in the months of April, May, and June, and did something to fill up the gaps in the line. But as the weeks went by Mr. Lloyd George perceived that the British reinforcements alone would be unequal to the great task. The Germans were still straining every nerve, and they were fighting against time. Our Government could not precisely tell how many reserves the Germans still possessed, or how many men they could spare from their Eastern Front. The Germans were working on the calculation that the Americans could not come across till 1919 or 1920, and their submarines were operating feverishly to keep up the alarm on the Atlantic Ocean. The Americans themselves were too far removed from the scene of danger to realise at once the greatness of the emergency. But they only required the S.O.S. signal. Mr. Lloyd George determined to give it.
One morning that spring he made up his mind.
“We have to get 500,000 Americans over in four months, at the rate of 125,000 a month. How can that be done?” That was the problem as he saw it and as he expressed it. He began to send a series of telegrams to President Wilson through Lord Reading, explaining to Mr. Wilson the peril and the need of instant help. President Wilson immediately grasped the crisis. Mr. Lloyd George organised the Navy and the Merchant Service for the work of transport on the British side of the Atlantic, and President Wilson did the same on his side. So began that great Armada of help from the New World. The American divisions poured across the Atlantic, overcrowded on their transports, packed almost to suffocation, but willing to suffer all things in the great crusade on which they were bent. The Americans, indeed, did far better than the British Government had expected. They sent a million men. It was a magnificent performance, and must ever be remembered to the credit of that great nation.
Then President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George, acting together, went one step further. When the American troops arrived many of them were instantly brigaded with the British and French forces, and so they learnt with the greatest rapidity possible all the craft and ruses necessary for modern warfare. They did their utmost to acquire in a few months all those new arts of destruction which it had taken Europe years to evolve. To achieve this, for the time they gave up America’s great dream of a national army. But, after all, the greatest fact of all was their arrival.
Meanwhile, during these weeks of suspense and endeavour the German armies had struck again and again in the last desperate campaign for victory. Through April, May, and June the issue still hung in the balance.
The second great attack on April 4th, when twenty German divisions, advancing towards Amiens, attempted to divide the British Armies from the French. That attack came very near to success. We all know how the Germans arrived at positions from which they could bombard Amiens and paralyse the communications, and it is blazed on the records of fame how the armies of the British Empire—men from Australia and Canada—held the line at Villers-Brettoneux, and by their invincible blending of defence and attack kept the assailing German divisions from achieving their purpose.
A few days later a new attack developed, this time farther north, west of Lille. From the British point of view this was the most menacing attack of all. It was a determined attempt to drive the British armies into the sea. On April 10th Armentières was occupied and the bloodstained Ridge of Messines crossed. On the 15th Bailleul was taken, and on the 25th the attack came to a climax with the capture of Kemmel Hill under the eyes of the German Emperor. Yet the Germans could not gain the decision they require. The British troops gave ground, but always fought on. The line bent, but it did not break.
But, as the weeks went on, the British Government replied in stern deeds which the whole British people supported. Not only did the younger men stream across the Channel, but the older men lined up to take their places. It was on March 9th that Mr. Lloyd George introduced that last and tremendous Military Service Act, raising the age to fifty, with a reserve possibility of fifty-five, and threatening to extend conscription to Ireland. Such extreme measures became in the result unnecessary: but partly because the British people showed that they were possible.