Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Lloyd George at War
- 1 Setting the Stage
- Part I The Home Front
- Part II Strategy and the War
- 5 The First Attempt at a Unified Command
- 6 Facing the Submarine Menace
- 7 Prelude to Catastrophe
- 8 The Horror of Passchendaele
- 9 The Peripheral War
- 10 The Quest for a Negotiated Peace
- 11 The Creation of the Supreme War Council
- 12 The Plans for 1918
- 13 Before the Storm
- 14 Crisis on the Western Front
- 15 The Maurice Affair
- 16 The Origins of Intervention in Russia
- 17 The German Advance Halted
- 18 The Turn of the Tide
- 19 The Road to the Armistice
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
8 - The Horror of Passchendaele
from Part II - Strategy and the War
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Maps
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Lloyd George at War
- 1 Setting the Stage
- Part I The Home Front
- Part II Strategy and the War
- 5 The First Attempt at a Unified Command
- 6 Facing the Submarine Menace
- 7 Prelude to Catastrophe
- 8 The Horror of Passchendaele
- 9 The Peripheral War
- 10 The Quest for a Negotiated Peace
- 11 The Creation of the Supreme War Council
- 12 The Plans for 1918
- 13 Before the Storm
- 14 Crisis on the Western Front
- 15 The Maurice Affair
- 16 The Origins of Intervention in Russia
- 17 The German Advance Halted
- 18 The Turn of the Tide
- 19 The Road to the Armistice
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
No sooner had the War Cabinet given reluctant and conditional assent to the Flanders operation, than Lloyd George tried different means to prevent Haig from carrying it out, lobbying instead for his Italian scheme. His big opportunity came when he crossed the Channel on July 22, along with Robertson and several members of the War Cabinet, to attend an inter-Allied conference in Paris. Before the start of the conference, he visited Painlevé and dined with his old friend, Albert Thomas. He advanced his case for concentration on the Italian front and, while they were attentive and sympathetic, they remained noncommittal.
Robertson, for his part, had no idea that Lloyd George was planning to rally the French authorities to his peripheral strategy. His first intimation of Lloyd George's machinations came when he, Foch, Pétain and Cadorna were asked to advise on the feasibility of sending assistance to Italy. By now, nothing that Lloyd George did should have surprised Robertson. At the gathering, Robertson persuaded the generals that it was folly to flip from one war plan to another and that the only sensible thing to do was to allow the existing arrangements to stand. It was agreed by all that the dispatch of Anglo-French troops to the Italian front should be considered only after the battle in Flanders was over and its results assessed.
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- Lloyd George at War, 1916–1918 , pp. 127 - 138Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2009