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now known to British consciousness.' That France remained undaunted and ready for vast new efforts is a striking proof of the fortitude of her people.

The chapter entitled 'The Blood Test,' in which the author surveys the war on the Western front from the point of view of the huge casualty lists, is painful reading. The prolonged agony of the combatant nations is here set down in cold figures, the full import of which we happily did not realise at the time. These grisly statistics are handled with much skill, but they are open to serious criticism, because the returns on which they are based are not strictly comparable; while the varying circumstances in which they occurred vitiate conclusions drawn from lumped totals. Major-General Sir F. Maurice, attacking Mr Churchill's deductions,* has stated that he has,

'by omitting lightly wounded, under-estimated the total German casualties on the Western front by approximately 1,300,000.... I am certain that he has greatly exaggerated the British battle casualties.' †

Sir Charles Oman, M.P., has powerfully reinforced these conclusions,‡ and the danger of attempting to base theories upon statistics is manifest. Mr Churchill discredits the whole strategic conception of the Westerners, finds fault with the views of Sir Douglas Haig, and especially those of Sir William Robertson, and suggests that other methods and different strategic policies would have hastened the end and saved life on a large scale. Attacks on well-conceived defences created in the field have always been costly, and on the Western front the Germans lavished the art of the military engineer to an extent never approached in the past. To attack such intensely formidable lines as quickly grew up in front of the Allies required tactical experience, which could be gained only by fighting and then gradually, an overpowering artillery, which for many months existed only on the German side, and the Tank, slowly evolved and

* The overwhelming superiority of the German artillery in the earlier stages of the War, and our culpable deficiency in machine-guns, the use of which had been carefully studied in Berlin, are factors which Mr Churchill does not adequately regard.

+ The Times,' March 17.

'Nineteenth Century and After,' May 1927.

at first misused. In part at least, all that Mr Churchill sweepingly condemns in the policy of the Westerners must be attributed to the total and inevitable inadequacy of our preparations at the outbreak of war; to the continuous and insistent need for supporting, with insufficient means the measures to which the French were committed, and to the blighting influence of Plan XVII.

Mistakes were freely made on the Western front, as in the misconceived and therefore futile attack on the Dardanelles, or the mad advance with a tired and illequipped force on Bagdad. All this must be admitted; but the crash finally came in the West and was due to the heavy losses, to the wearing down of the German moral and to the exhaustion of man-power arising from the offensives of the Allies. Mr Churchill under-estimates at 3,348,000 the total German losses on the Western front before Ludendorff's great attack beginning in March 1918; but he explains the drain on German manpower, the annual intake of which had to be 'heavily anticipated in their hard need.' Yet he is convinced that 'It was their own offensive, not ours, that consummated their ruin. They were worn down not by Joffre, Nivelle, and Haig, but by Ludendorff.' But for what had been learned in the terrific fighting that preceded, with the shaking of the German moral which it entailed, Ludendorff's tremendous effort might have succeeded. But for the failure to reinforce the British armies in time, it might have taken other forms. Throughout these volumes, there is a stream of suggestion, that there are ways of avoiding costly offensives, by indirect methods pursuing lines of least resistance, which to politicians watching the long, bloody, and apparently abortive operations in the West seemed naturally attractive.

Mr Lloyd George had a great inspiration which appeared on Jan. 1, 1915. He proposed to withdraw our Expeditionary Force with the exception of a reserve to be retained near Boulogne, and to send it to the Balkans to operate in vague conjunction with the armies of Serbia, Greece, and Rumania against Austria. At the same time, 100,000 British troops were to be landed somewhere in Syria to cut off the Turks, believed to be

moving on Egypt. The effect of this wild-cat soheme would have been the conquest of France, the loss of the Channel ports and a German triumph. Mr Churchill, though a 'whole hogger' as regards the Dardanelles, does not appear to be a too enthusiastic Easterner, and he sharply condemns the original occupation of the pestilential area of Salonica.

'Such was their (M. Briand's and Mr Lloyd George's) influence upon events that a numerous allied army was, at enormous cost, in defiance of military opinion, and after most of the original political objectives had disappeared, carried or being carried to Salonica.'

Later, this army was to make good after unnecessary loss and wasteful expenditure. While, however, Mr Churchill is thus quick to note the gross defects of Mr Lloyd George's first contribution to war strategy, he asks us to 'Suppose for instance the war power represented by the 450,000 French and British casualties in the Champagne-Loos battle of 1915 had been used to force the Dardanelles, and combine the Balkan States'!

Such profitless imaginings could be multiplied-and parodied—indefinitely. In all, we employed nearly 470,000 troops at Gallipoli and lost about 120,000 killed and wounded, exclusive of heavy casualties from sickness, while 74,000 tons of war shipping were sunk, and the drain upon our resources was very great. The Expedition was happily withdrawn after risky delays caused by vacillations in council. The whole tragic story has been vividly told by Sir W. Robertson,* who is able to supplement the Report of the Royal Commission, and it is unjust to attribute this lamentable fiasco 'to the narrow and local views of British Admirals and Generals and of the French Headquarters.' Mr Churchill considers that, even in 1916, a 'surprise attack upon the Dardanelles... would best have served our interests.' But 'no such audacious scheme crossed the minds of our rulers,' and 'It was not until the summer of 1918 that Admiral Keyes -strong in the achievement of Zeebrugge-and Admiral Wemyss installed as First Sea Lord, were able to obtain the authority for a renewed naval forcing of the Dardanelles in the possible campaign of 1919. That was at last too late.'

'Soldiers and Statesmen.' Cassell & Co.

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It was indeed 'too late,' since all the conditions which justified the original project had passed away long before this authority' was forthcoming.

In didactic mood, Mr Churchill outlines his policy as regards the handling of the whole campaign in France and Flanders, and the tactical conceptions which he sketches with a light hand, colour much of his abundant military criticism. His policy is defined as an 'active defensive.' 'Suppose,' he writes, 'that we,

'both British and French, have trained our armies behind the trench line to a high standard of flexible manoeuvring efficiency; suppose we have permanently fortified, with concrete and every modern device, those portions of the front where we cannot retreat; suppose we have long selected and shrewdly weakened those portions where we could afford to give 20 or 30 kilometres of ground; suppose that we lure the enemy to attack them and make great pockets and bulges in a thin and yielding front, and then, just as he thinks himself pressing on to final victory, strike with independent counter-offensive on the largest scale and with deeply planned railways, not at his fortified trench line, but at the flanks of a moving, quivering line of battle'!

To this general policy, artifice should have been added. 'Craft, foresight, deep comprehension of the verities, not only local but general; stratagems, devices, manœuvres, all of these on the grand scale are demanded from the chiefs of great armies.'

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These are manifestly counsels of perfection based upon experiences dearly bought; but it is unlikely that they entirely escaped the purview of the generals whom Mr Churchill criticises. It must be admitted that our splendid infantry was sometimes used before it was fully trained to a high standard of flexible manoeuvring efficiency'; but valiant attempts were made to 'make great pockets and bulges,' and their comparative failure was in great part due to conditions which Mr Churchill ignores. The enemy's 'fortified trench line' had in any case to be broken through on a broad front before the 'quivering' flanks of his army could be attacked, and when this had been accomplished, much time was required to bring the artillery to new positions and to organise supply. Such efforts, and notably that of Ludendorff

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in 1918, always came to a standstill during which the threatened forces could draw upon reserves and create a new defensive line. Mr Churchill's policy would have been to lure the enemy' to make these 'bulges' just where it suited our preparations; but the Germans, though committing gigantic errors in his opinion, were well served in the matter of information, and in vain is the snare if the bird has observed it. Our armies were never free to adopt an independent policy, but were forced to conform to conditions either arising in France or prescribed by the enemy. The fighting of 1916 was dominated by Falkenhayn's decision to make a mass attack on Verdun, which Mr Churchill regards as dictated by a hopelessly false strategy. That of 1917 was virtually ordained by the 'Nivelle experiment,' deranged from the first by Ludendorff's sudden withdrawal. In that of 1918, German initiative governed the action of the allied generals until the general advance to victory.

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In the form of a Political Interlude' (Chapter X) Mr Churchill deals with some of the political reactions which powerfully affected the course of the War. the break up of the Asquith Cabinet and its implications, he has much to tell. In July 1915, he drew up an important report for the Cabinet, the gist of which was that the then methods of recruiting were unjust and inadequate. The time for ordered conscription had come, though this was not stated, and divisions in the Cabinet made a thorough discussion' impossibly dangerous. The personal differences of leading politicians thus prevented the truth from being laid before Parliament and the nation. Many weeks slipped away in deadlock,' and at length the Derby scheme was evolved as a compromise, well intentioned and well directed, but quite insufficient to meet the realities of the military situation. Further prolonged political complications followed, and after consideration by numerous committees, the new Man Power Bill was not introduced in the House of Commons till April 9, 1917, and was quickly passed though not wholly satisfactory. Over these protracted proceedings Mr Churchill skates too lightly; but happily Sir W. Robertson has filled up the gaps and explained the great

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