WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

322 WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
continuous heavy rains, but not if the smouldering stack is
completely under cover.
The sector of the enemy's front which it was intended to
attack, and the objective which it was sought to attain, had
been chosen by our military and naval advisers in the late
autumn of 1916. It was to be an operation for clearing the
coast of Flanders, as a minimum objective. There was also
the prospect of a break-through which might end in "rolling"
the Germans out of Belgium. Attrition was an afterthought
of beaten Generals to explain away their defeat, and perhaps
to extract some residue of credit out of a bad scheme badly
handled.
Sir Eric Geddes received orders about December, 1916,
to develop the transport arrangements by road and rail between
all the ports on the Northeast coast and our Flanders
Front with a view to carrying great numbers of troops and
vast quantities of material into that area. When he complained,
in January, that he was short of fifty thousand tons a
week of material to carry out his orders, it was assumed by
the War Cabinet that the urgency of his need for all that
immense consignment of steel rails and road material was
because he was being pressed by the Commander-in-Chief to
perfect the arrangements for the spring offensive so as to
enable the British Army to strike at the time indicated in
the plan. It was discovered afterwards that most of the supply
was required to make and improve roads and rails to
bring up troops, ammunition, equipment and supplies for the
Flanders attack in the late summer. He was given all the material
and facilities he asked for. Never has there been a
single battle staged with such tremendous and prolonged
preparations. If therefore it failed, that failure is not attributable
to any neglect to supply the High Command with
all that was needful in the way of men, guns, tanks and ammunition
to make and to sustain their attack, or to any lack