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SOLIDARITY TO SHORTEN WAR

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I could no longer remain responsible for a war direction doomed to disaster for lack of unity.

NATIONAL SUSCEPTIBILITIES

The Italian disaster may yet save the alliance, for without it I do not believe that even now we should have set up real council. National and professional traditions, prestige and susceptibilities all conspired to render nugatory our best resolutions. There was no one in particular to blame. It was an inherent difficulty in getting so many independent nations, so many independent organizations, to merge all their individual idiosyncrasies and to act together as if they were one people. Now that we have set up this council our business is to see that the unity which it represents is a fact and not a fraud.

It is for this reason that I have spoken to-day with perhaps brutal frankness, at the risk of much misconception here and elsewhere, and perhaps at some risk of giving temporary encouragement to the foe. This council has been set up. It has started its work. But particularism will again reassert itself, because it represents permanent forces deeply entrenched in every political and military organization. And it is only by means of public opinion awakened to real danger that you can keep these narrow instincts and interests, with the narrow vision and outlook which they involve, from reasserting their dominance and once more plunging us into the course of action which produced the tragedies of Serbia and Rumania and has very nearly produced an even deeper tragedy for Italy. The war has been prolonged by sectionalism; it will be shortened by solidarity.

If this effort at achieving solidarity is made a reality I have no doubt of the issue of the war. The weight of men, material and morale, with all its meaning, is on our side. I say so, whatever may happen to, or in, Russia. I am not one of those who despair of Russia. A revolutionary Russia can never be anything but a menace to Hohenzollernism. But even if I were in despair of Russia, my faith in the ultimate triumph of the allied cause would remain unshaken. The tried democracies of France, Great Britain and Italy, with the aid of the mighty democracy of the west, must win in the end. Autocracy may be better for swift striking, but Freedom is the best stayer. We shall win, but I want to win as soon as possible. I want to win with as little sacrifice as possible. I want as many as possible of that splendid young manhood which has helped to win victory to live through to enjoy its fruits.

REAL, NOT SHAM, UNITY

Unity-not sham unity, but real unity-is the only sure pathway to victory. The magnitude of the sacrifices made by the people of all the allied countries ought to impel us to suppress all minor appeals in order to attain the common purpose of all this sacrifice. All personal, all sectional, considerations should be relentlessly suppressed. This is one of the greatest hours in the history of mankind. Let us not dishonor greatness with pettiness.

I have just returned from Italy, where I saw your fine troops marching cheerily to face their ancient foes, marching past battlefields where men of their race once upon a time wrought deeds which now constitute part of the romance of this old world-Arcola, Lodi, Marengo. We met the King of Italy on the battlefield of Solferino, and we there again saw French soldiers pass on to defend the freedom which their fathers helped to win with their blood. When I saw them in such environment I thought that France has a greater gift for sacrificing herself for human liberty than any nation in the world. And as I reflected on the sacrifices she had made in this war for the freedom of mankind I had a sob in my heart. You, assembled here to-day, must be proud that you have been called to be leaders of so great a people at so great an hour. And as one who sincerely loves France, you will forgive me for saying that I know that, in the discharge of your trust, you will in all things seek to be worthy of so glorious a land.

FRENCH PREMIER'S INDORSEMENT

Premier Paul Painlevé of France in his speech on the same occasion paid a glowing tribute to the services of Italy to the Allies, declaring that no Frenchman could forget that it was the benevolent neutrality of Italy in 1914 which enabled France to meet the invader with her full strength. Continuing he said:

Now, along every railway, every road, French and British soldiers, guns and munitions are pouring over the Alps. The help will be commensurate with the danger. The Allies must pool all their resources, all their energy, all their will to conquer. One Front, One Army, One Nation-that is the program of the future victory.

After contrasting enemy unity, which entailed brutality and the subjection of one people to another, M. Painlevé continued:

RESULTING POLITICAL CRISES

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We are free peoples who refuse to accept this subjection. The task of the new Interallied War Committee or Supreme War Council which has just been formed by the great allied nations will be to reconcile this independence with unity of leading. . . . To hold on-that is the whole question. There is no need to count our enemies. The whole matter is to be resolved to make the necessary effort to beat them and to be convinced that we can do it.

The next day Premier Painlevé made a formal statement to both houses of the French Parliament, in which he reviewed the whole situation. It throws additional light on the military situation of the period and resulted in a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, 250 ayes, 192 noes.

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Shortly after the favorable vote in the Chamber on the speech that body took up the discussion of the date of the interpellation on the defeatist scandals, involving broadly the Bolo Pasha, Malvy and Caillaux affairs. The ministry insisted on fixing. November 30 as the date and the Chamber rejected the proposal, 277 noes to 186 ayes. The Painlevé ministry left the Chamber to resign.

A BRITISH POLITICAL CRISIS

In England the news of the Rapallo agreement and the speech of Lloyd George on November 12 generated the first of a series of political crises due to the fear on the part of a certain section of the House of Commons that the Supreme War Council might curtail the freedom of decision of the chief of the general staff. The matter came up on November 14 when the former premier, Herbert Henry Asquith, asked the premier "whether he would now state the precise functions of the interallied council, and, in particular, of its military staff; whether it was proposed that the council, if so advised by its staff, should have the power to interfere with and override the opinion on matters of strategy of the general staff at home and the commanders-in-chief in the field; whether the military staff of the interallied council was to have intelligence and operations departments, or either of them, of its own; whether the ultimate decision as to the distribution and 1 For text see Appendix II, page 403.

movement of the various armies in the field was to rest on the council or on the Governments represented on it; and whether opportunity would be given to discuss the proposed arrangements and the statements made in connection therewith in the premier's Paris speech."

Premier Lloyd George in reply said that the best way of answering the question was to read the actual terms of the agreement between the British, French and Italian Governments, which he did. He made a further explanation, saying:

From the foregoing it will be clear that the council will have no executive power, and that the final decisions in matters of strategy, and as to the distribution and movements of the various armies in the field, will rest with the several Governments of the Allies. There will therefore be no operations department attached to the council. The permanent military representatives will derive from the existing intelligence departments of the Allies all the information necessary in order to enable them to submit advice to the Supreme Allied Council. The object of the Allies has been to set up a central body charged with the duty of continuously surveying the field of operations as a whole and, by the light of information derived from all fronts and from all Governments and staffs, of co-ordinating the plans prepared by the different general staffs, and, if necessary, of making proposals of their own for the better conduct of the war.'

PROPOSED BY MILITARY COMMANDERS

He promised to make a more extended statement on the following Tuesday, and at that time silenced all criticism. Replying to a speech of Mr. Asquith on that day, November 19, Lloyd George said:

Who was the first to suggest the idea? It is rather important I should inform the House, because there has been a good deal of suggestion outside that this is an attempt to interfere with the staffs an attempt on the part of civilians to interfere with the soldiers. Who was the first to suggest a council of this kind? Lord Kitchener. I have taken trouble to look up the records. In 1915 Lord Kitchener proposed it almost in the

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SOLDIERS PROPOSED PLAN

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very terms in which I recommended it in Paris. That was in 1915, and I have no hesitation in saying if his advice had been carried out-I admit there were difficulties then and that it is easier to do it now than in 1915 -but if his advice in 1915 had been carried out by all the Allies, I say without any hesitation we should have been further forward. . . .

The second time it was proposed was in July this year at a meeting of the commanders-in-chief. I forget whether all were there, but all the chiefs of staff were. At any rate, Sir William Robertson, General Pershing, General Cadorna and General Foch were there. They recommended, as a means for dealing with the situation, the setting up of an interallied council. Their proposal was "the realization of unity of action on the western front by the help of a permanent interallied military organization which will study and prepare the rapid movement of troops from one theater to another." When it is suggested that all this is a device on the part of civilians to get control of strategy I am glad of the opportunity which has been afforded me to quote the authority of these great soldiers as proof that the initiation of the suggestion came from them in the first instance, and not from politicians.

HOW TO CO-ORDINATE

I come to the second point. Having agreed that it is desirable to get some sort of central authority in order to co-ordinate-I use the word [Mr. Asquith] used, there is no better-what is the best method of doing it? He examined three alternatives. I am in complete agreement with him in his views with regard to the first two. The first has been put forward in very responsible quarters, and that is the appointment of a generalissimo, a generalissimo of the whole of the forces of the Allies. . .

The second suggestion is a suggestion which finds favor, not only in France but in America. America, France, Britain, Italy have agreed to join in this allied council, but, so far as I am able to gauge American opinion by the criticisms which have appeared in responsible newspapers, America would have preferred a council with executive powerswith greater powers. The criticism is not that we have gone too far, but that we have not gone far enough. There has been no criticism in

any allied country on the ground that we have gone too far. . . .

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The last alternative is the one we have adopted, a council representative of all allied countries with technical advisers drawn from all the allied armies to help the various Governments to co-ordinate their efforts. That is the present proposal. What are the advantages of this proposal

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