WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

CAMPAIGN OF THE MUD: PASSCHENDAELE 405
ing Robertson to redeem that promise on exactly the same
grounds as were being urged by the general in command of
the attacking Army. I failed to persuade him that the time
had arrived to call off this offensive, but in discussing the
matter he certainly never informed me that the general who
was in command of the operations agreed with me. Did he
know? If he did not, then it is only right that those who were
in his confidence at that date should say so. Haig knew.
Gough, having received his orders from G.H.Q., continued
to press on after it had become quite obvious that the
object of the campaign was unattainable. He does not seem
to have withheld his opinion on that point from the Commander-in-Chief,
but he states that:
"On the 28th (September) Haig held a conference, at which
he expressed somewhat optimistic views, and gave the opinion
that our repeated blows were using up the enemy's reserves and
that we might soon be able to push on with no definite and limited
objectives as heretofore. He thought that it might be possible
that tanks and even cavalry could get forward. . . . From a
tactical outlook his hopeful opinion was not justified when one
considered the ground, the weariness of our own men, and the
stout hearts which, in spite of all, were still beating under the
German tunics.
"A letter from Plumer to G.H.Q. two days later threw some
cold water on these hopes. . . ."
Here indeed was a Commander-in-Chief who had completely
lost his balance. General Gough need not wait until
he reached the ridge before throwing in "masses of cavalry."
The time had already arrived for the great charge which was
to ride down the beaten foe with irresistible fury and scatter
them along the plains of Belgium as the Prussian squadrons
had chased the flying rabble of Napoleon's broken army after
the route of Waterloo.
I shall be interested, when Sir Douglas Haig's Memoirs