The Government, therefore, propose to submit to Parliament today certain recommendations, in order to assist this country and the Allies to weather the storm. They will involve, I regret, extreme sacrifices on the part of large classes of the population, and nothing would justify them but the most extreme necessity and the fact that we are fighting for all that is essential and most sacred in our national life.
Before I come to the circumstances which led up to our submitting these proposals to Parliament, I ought to say one word as to why Parliament was not immediately summoned. Since the battle began the Government have been engaged almost every hour in concerting with the Allies the necessary measures to assist the armies to deal with the emergency.
The proposals which we intend submitting to Parliament required very close and careful examination, and I think there is this advantage in our meeting today, rather than immediately after the impact of the German attack, that we shall be considering these proposals under conditions which will be far removed from any suggestion of panic.
THE BATTLE OF PICARDY
I shall now come to the circumstances which have led to the present military position. It is very difficult at this time to present a clear, connected, and reliable narrative of what happened. There has been a great battle on a front of fifty miles—the greatest battle ever fought in the history of the world. Enormous forces have been engaged; there was a considerable retirement on the part of the British forces, and under these conditions it is not always easy for some time to ascertain what actually happened.
The House will recollect the difficulty we experienced with regard to Cambrai. It was difficult to piece together the story of the event for some time, and Cambrai was a very trivial event compared with this gigantic battle.
The Generals and their staffs are, naturally, engaged and have to concentrate their attention upon the operations of the enemy, and until the strain relaxes it would be very difficult to institute the necessary inquiries to find out exactly what happened, and to furnish an adequate explanation of the battle.
However, there are two or three facts which stand out, and in stating them I should like to call attention to two things which I think above all must be avoided. The first is that nothing should be said which could give information to the enemy; nothing should be said which would give encouragement to the enemy, and nothing should be said which would give discouragement to our own troops, who are fighting so gallantly at this very hour. And the second question is that all recrimination at this hour must be shut out.
GERMANS SLIGHTLY WEAKER
What was the position at the beginning of the battle? Notwithstanding the heavy casualties in 1917 the army in France was considerably stronger on Jan. 1, 1918, than on Jan. 1, 1917. Up to the end of 1917—up to, say, about October or November—the German combatant strength in France was as two to the Allies' three. Then came the military collapse of Russia, and the Germans hurried up their released divisions from the eastern front and brought them to the west. They had a certain measure of Austrian support, which had been accorded to them.