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nental warfare, and that Germany had been defeated by 46 the unquiet western front the naval blockade and internal collapse rather than by the wasteful attrition on the Western Front. He abetted Churchill s case that a strategy of indirect approach, which was attempted and failed tragically at the Dardanelles, was the correct course for Britain. Additionally he helped to fo- cus attention on the Palestine campaign and the romantic exploits of T. E. Lawrence as an alternative to the blood- bath in Flanders.36 The work which surely did most damage to the gener- als and the conduct of the war on the Western Front thus powerfully endorsing the literary myth was Lloyd George s Memoirs, published in six volumes between 1933 and 1936. In his foreword to the new, two-volume, edition in 1938 Lloyd George wrote: I aim to tell the naked truth about the war as I saw it from the conning-tower at Downing Street. I saw how the incredible heroism of the common man was being squandered to repair the incompetence of the trained inexperts [sic] . . . in the narrow, selfish and unimaginative strategy and in the ghastly butchery of a succession of vain and insane offensives. It is perhaps unnecessary to comment that Lloyd George had been prime minister while the most controversial of these offensives had taken place and had the constitutional responsibility to stop it if he deemed it to be failing or too costly in casualties. In his original preface he had referred to reckless and unintelligent handling [which] brought us almost to the rim of catastrophe, and how we were saved largely by the incredible folly of our foes . He regretted more than words can express the necessity for telling the bare facts of our bloodstained stagger to victory . Lloyd George, with Liddell Hart s help, devoted a special effort to the prosecution case in the Passchendaele campaign be- cause he saw this as crucial in shaping the British people s memory of the Great War. Aware that he might be criticized goodbye to all that, 1919--1933 47 for seeking to demolish the reputation of Field Marshal Earl Haig after his death (in 1928), Lloyd George added a chap- ter on Lord Haig s Diaries and After , where he argued that Alfred Duff Cooper s two-volume biography of the former commander-in-chief (1935 6), which had quoted remark- ably sterile and undistinguished extracts from Haig s di- aries, demanded a response.37 Lloyd George s immediate target may have been Duff Cooper, but the real objective of his venom was Haig. The latter has five closely printed columns of entries in the index, nearly all of them uncom- plimentary to say the least. Here is a sample: His reputation founded on cavalry exploits. Insists on premature use of tanks. His refusal to face unpleasant facts. His limited vision. Viciously resists Lloyd George s attempts to get Unity of Command. His stubborn mind transfixed on the Somme. Prefers to gamble with men s lives rather than to admit an error. Completely ignorant of the state of ground at Passchendaele. Painstaking but unimaginative. Narrowness of his outlook. Incapable of changing his plans. His liking for great offensives. Unequal to his task. Did not inspire his men. His ingenuity at shifting the blame to other shoulders than his own. Only took part in two battles during the war. So it is clear that the prime minister was not wholly satis- fied with his commander-in-chief! But note also two further entries: 48 the unquiet western front Lloyd George had no personal quarrel with . . . [and] No conspicuous officer better qualified for highest command than. One should also not miss the index entries on military mind which include: Military mind, narrowness of. Stubbornness of, not peculiar to America. Does not seem to understand arithmetic. Represented by Sir Henry Wilson s fantastic memorandum. Obsessed with the North-West Frontier of India. Impossibility of trusting. Regards thinking as a form of mutiny.38 Lloyd George s Memoirs fanned the flames of bitter controversy. Although Haig s supporters, including two generals, Maurice and Gwynn, rallied to his defence, most reviewers favoured the former prime minister s interpre- tation. As much as any historical source these Memoirs stigmatized indelibly the military elite in the popular memory.39 At the outset I mentioned Correlli Barnett s charge that the anti-war literature of the late 1920s had fatally under- mined British confidence in the national achievement in the First World War, thereby contributing to a reluctance to rearm when confronted by the Nazi threat in the 1930s, and leading ultimately to the collapse of British power . I believe that this was one important element in the appeas- ing mentality, though only entertained by a small minority of the population as a whole. I have suggested, from a longer perspective, that with all its complexities and ambigui- ties British anti-war literature, given an enormous boost [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |