Lloyd George’s Expedients, Part II
John Terraine sheds fresh light on the principles at stake in the disputes between generals and politicians during the last year of the First World War.
In the warm sunshine of the belated spring of 1917, the British Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, was a man transformed. British successes and French failures in the grim, wintry battles of April had had their effect. Writing from Paris on April 21st to Sir Douglas Haig, Lord Esher said: “It is almost comic to see how the balance has turned. For the moment, I do not think you could do wrong.”
On May 6th, he went further: “[Lloyd George] has shelled off his Gallic proclivities in a remarkable degree. He has got to distinguish matter from form, and his notions of French superiority in everything are obliterated. He sees, with his serene Celtic forgetfulness, the British Commander-in-Chief and the British soldier, through a more gracious stratum of air.”
This was two days after a significant Anglo-French conference in Paris (where Haig noted that the chestnut trees in the Champs Elysees were at last in leaf); Esher’s comment confirmed Haig’s own impression:
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