and shrug and sigh over its being too late. But if a central military organ of command for the whole front between the North Sea and the Adriatic had existed before, the necessity for the improvement would have appeared as soon as they started discussing, and it could easily have been carried out in the early part of the war. Caporetto decided Mr Lloyd George. At a conference held at Rappallo in the beginning of November, the Supreme War Council was founded as a central directing political body for the whole alliance: it was a monthly meeting of the principal Ministers of each country at Versailles. There was a permanent staff of Military Representatives at that place to aot as their military advisers. These military advisers were Sir Henry Wilson; Weygand, Chief of the Staff to Foch in Paris; General Cadorna; and later, General Bliss, American Chief of the Staff. This, as Major Grasset says, "was a hesitating but not less decisive step towards unity of command.' The plans elaborated between Foch and Sir Henry Wilson at Versailles can be better understood if the forces in opposition, as they were to be between the middle and end of February 1918, when the fighting was expected to begin, are known. By the flow of divisions from the East, the Germans in France then had 178 divisions-estimated at 1630 battalions, 1,232,000 rifles, and 24,000 sabres; 8800 field-guns and 5500 heavy guns. The allies had available 97 French, 57 British, 10 Belgian, 1 American, and 2 Portuguese-altogether 167 divisions, estimated at 1585 battalions, 1,480,000 rifles, 74,000 sabres; 8900 field-guns and 6800 heavy guns. So the Allied totals were still superior to the German, the German units, divisions and battalions, being smaller than the Allied. The rate at which their divisions could be brought from the East, where they still had 58, of rather inferior quality, was about 10 a month. Of those, perhaps 40 at the most could be expected to expected to appear in France, and so their maximum strength, between 200 and 210 divisions, would be reached in May, But the American divisions (of which one only was now in the line and counted) were beginning to come in; so that at no time would the German superiority in number over the Allies be near so great as the Allied superiority over the Germans had been for at least one and a half years. There ought therefore to have been no cause for anxiety. On the Italian front there were still the 11 Anglo-French divisions sent there after Caporetto, and 50 Italian divisions: 764 battalions, 633,000 rifles, 6400 sabres; 3700 fieldguns and 2100 heavy guns. The enemy had only 43 Austrian and 3 German, a total of 46 divisions: 439,000 rifles, 3400 sabres; 3000 fieldguns and 1500 heavy guns. On the Italian front therefore we were still 6 to 4 in spite of Caporetto. In the East the Austrians had 34 divisions, some of which might be expected to come to Italy; but, on the other hand, the Italians had not yet put into the line all the divisions they had reconstructed out of their defeated troops during the winter, out of which they were ultimately to form the Sixth Army. In the Balkans there were 23 Bulgarian, 2 German, and 2 Austrian divisions, a total of 27: 294 battalions, 228,000 rifles, 3000 sabres, 972 fieldguns, and 353 heavy guns. On our side, 8 French, 4 British, 11 Italian, 3 Greek, 6 Serbian, 1 Italian in Albania, 23 divisions in all: 271 battalions, 219,000 rifles, 7000 sabres, 1100 fieldguns, and 380 heavy guns. Here the enemy was slightly superior; but the Greek mobilisation was not finished. Later in the spring the size of their contingent would be doubled or trebled; this would leave the advantage to the Allies again, In Palestine and Mesopotamia the Allies were overwhelmingly larger than the Turks, whose battalions, by the time they reached the front, were all reduced to 200 or 300 by desertion. General Allenby in Palestine had 7 British and 1 Indian divisions: 117 battalions, 100,000 rifles, 16,000 sabres, 410 field-guns, and 93 heavy guns. Facing him were 11 Turkish divisions and 1 second-class German division at and south of Damasous: 107 battalions, but only 29,000 rifles and 3000 sabres, and perhaps 200 or 300 guns. We were 3 to 1. In Mesopotania, 1 British and 5 Indian divisions: 101 battalions, 125,000 rifles, 9000 sabres, 300 field-guns, and 50 heavy guns. Against these the Turks had nominally 5 divisions and 47 battalions, but these only amounted to 18,000 rifles, 1000 sabres, and no more than 100 guns. Here we were 6 to 1. This survey would not be complete without a mention of Lettow - Vorbeck in East Africa, with his 250 Europeans and 1500 Africans. A British and native force of 12,000 rifles, with a ration (not a combatant) strength of 55,000 were kept busy chasing him. So the Allies, in spite of losing the Russians and Roumanians, kingdoms of millions of men, who had thrown into the balance more than 120 divisions - in spite of not having more than one Amerioan division at their side from a country which had actually registered 25 million men as capable of military service-in spite of these deductions, at the beginning of 1918, still had the advantage. War abstracts the world into a chess-board where each piece is measured in divisions. At the first meeting of the Supreme War Council, M. Venizelos harangued it for an hour on the past, present, and future glories of Hellas; but when he stopped drenching his audience with his eloquence, the only voice raised was by General Robertson, who asked, The other part of the plan of campaign was the Palestine offensive: Allenby already had an overwhelming preponderance over the Turks. That preponderance was to be further increased; he was to be reinforced from Mesopotamia with forces originally fixed at a higher figure, but ultimately amounting to 1 Indian division. An Indian cavalry division in France was to be sent to him. His forces were so large that the real difficulty was supplying him, and his capacity for hitting hard depended much more much more upon the rate at which the railroad from Egypt could be pushed forward. But with a little time and a great deal of railroad material, it was reckoned he ought to be able to annihilate the very inferior Turkish forces in front of him. To this Eastern project the French members of the Supreme War War Council Council at first presented some opposition, but assented on condition that no white troops were removed from France for this attempt. There was also the opposition to it from General Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. This plan of campaign, in its two parts, a central command in France and an offensive in Palestine, was in effect the plan that carried the Allies to victory in the autumn: Allenby's annihilation of the Turkish Army in front of him knocked out the corner-stone of the edifice of the enemy's power, and Foch's conduct of the operations in France led to a result that no one had anticipated. But the first winter edition of the plan was better both in means and conception than its autumn successor. Allenby's British troops were taken from him after the disaster of the spring, and Indian divisions substituted. Foch's authority as chairman of the Executive War Board was better conceived and clearer than his authority as generalissimo, which was to "co-ordinate the action of the British and French armies." If the second edition of this plan of campaign finished the war, the first edition would have done it even more surely. So great in war is the importance of a good plan that, as soon as it was found and carried out, the war ended. In the winter of 1917-1918, a friend talking of the difficulties in front of the Allies, said to Fooh's Chief of Staff, Weygand "However bad our situation may seem now, it was worse for you and General Foch at the Marne; for you were heavily outnumbered, and we will still be superior till the month of April." Weygand answered "Our situation is much worse now; for then we had the magnificent plan of Marshal Joffre, and now we have no plan at all." The Supreme War Council adopted this plan at a session in the last days of January and the first days of February 1918. The utmost precautions of secrecy were adopted: for Public opinion in France and Italy had been canvassing the question of a supreme commander in the field during the whole winter, and was naturally concerned at the disconnection between the three armies defending its soil. To reassure this opinion the news that these armies had been given a certain unity under Fooh was published in the papers, but in a vague and misleading way. The other decision, to overwhelm the Turkish armies in Palestine, was guarded with greater precautions of secrecy than any other decision ever taken by the Supreme War Council. some of the sittings most of defended by Ludendorff unless the secretaries were excluded information was acquired where from the room. The copies of the blow was intended to fall: the plan of campaign and of then forces sufficient to meet the minutes of the meeting it might be concentrated in were limited to a few copies that quarter. The information and put in the hands of only was therefore inestimable. a few people. For Ludendorff, as he has now told us, was as anxious about being attacked as the Allies were. His position, a few weeks before the campaign could be expected to open, was anxious and precarious: on almost every front he was outnumbered. The collapse of any of the numerous fronts meant the loss of an Ally whose fall would probably bring down another, till the four Central Powers knocked each other down like skittles. Through the two main channels, Danish and Swiss, along with the indiscretions of the enemy which reached the ears of the Allies, they could know his apprehensions, which he confesses in his published memoirs. Verdun, close to the line of railroad which gave them lateral communication, was a sensitive point in the German defensive system, and here the German General Staff anticipated an attack by the Allies that would forestall theirs. There was no secret more precious than where the Allied attack was coming. The various theatres of war, in which the system of the Central Powers lay, were strung out along an awkward line, separated by nature, and in the East connected by railroad lines of communication insufficient, defeotive, and slow. Ignorant where the aim of the Allies was, no portion could be firmly VOL. CCVIII.—NO. MCCLIX. A very sprightly and brilliant writer on military affairs, Colonel Repington, had till the beginning of January been military correspondent of 'The Times': at that date he left The Times,' which had grown oritical of General Robertson, and became military correspondent of the Morning Post.' There he became the avowed exponent of that General's views, referred to himself as the official spokesman of the General Staff, and published information which he could not have obtained anywhere but from the War Office. A letter from him, written in Paris on February 5, was published, denouncing the Inter-Allied War Council U suppress it entirely; but after 8 talk with his AttorneyGeneral, Sir Gordon Hewart, Mr Lloyd George adopted a course much more astute. The editor and Colonel Repington were only prosecuted and fined for a technical offence under the Defence of the Realm Aot; and Sir Gordon took care during the prosecution to make only the disclosures about the General Reserve a subject of complaint: the passage about the side-show, which revealed the secret of the Allies, he treated as inoffensive. This artful treatment may have attenuated the effect of the betrayal. which had just been held, to seize the printing presses On February the 11th another of the 'Morning Post,' and so article by him was published in the 'Morning Post.' This was a detailed and accurate account of the decisions and discussions of the last Session of the Supreme War Council. It described with fulness the Executive War Board as "The Versailles soldiers under the presidency of General Foch," "controlling and directing the reserves," and reveals the machinery by criticising it. Further, he calls on Parliament to intervene, and not permit "a side-show" to take place. The side-show he describes, in the very words of Mr Lloyd George, as recorded in the minutes of the session, as "the delivery of a knockout blow to Turkey." So as to leave nothing in doubt, he indicates the theatre of war where the side-show is to take place: "the Turks will retire in front of us from Damascus to Aleppo." The article also tells Ludendorff that Allenby's real diffioulty was, the very point of the discussion that the Supreme War Council had had, "How long will it take for our broadgauge railway, at the rate of half a mile a day, to reach Aleppo?" The article is a summary a very excellent and concise summary-of the principal decisions and discussions that had taken place at a session where the Supreme War Council had refined on their usual precautions for secrecy, extravagant as these usually were. The first decision of the War Cabinet was The editor of the 'Morning Post,' whose patriotism was above suspicion, aoted, and Colonel Repington no doubt also, from their own sense of duty, and (as the magistrate who convicted them said) they knew the risks they were taking. Colonel Repington disavows in this article having an "official report of these proceedings," or "spoken to any of our military or military representatives who attended"; but he protests too much. In this and subsequent articles from his lively pen he quotes actual phrases-the natural, felicitous, epigrammatic phrases of Mr Lloyd George recorded in the minutes of the session : they must have caught his quick literary eye as he read them over. He could not have had all the information he published, which was absolutely complete, unless he had |
