WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

470 WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
When it became apparent that the Allies were prepared
seriously to consider a combined offensive in Italy, as usual
the Italian Staff began to waver and hesitate. General Albricci
represented the Italian Army in the absence of Cadorna.
Whilst professing to welcome any support the Allies
could accord to the Italians, he said in reply to a question
I put to him as to when their Army could launch an
offensive:
"The latest season was the end of August, after that an
offensive must wait till the end of the spring, say ISth May."
The answer, of course, disposed of any idea of a combined
Allied attack in Austria during 1917. General Albricci stuck
to his view, even though he was strongly pressed on all sides.
I observed that I had always thought myself that the best
policy was for the Allies to try really to crush Austria. I had
made the suggestion in Rome, and it was then considered
too early. I made it now, and it was apparently considered too
late. I contrasted the method of the Central Powers in pooling
their resources, which enabled them to drive back and break
up great armies and to hold a vast extent of enemy territory,
with the Allies' efforts which, gallant though they were, only
chipped a few bits off a granite rock. I considered it a great
misfortune that the Allies could not deliver one big smashing
blow. I criticised the methods hitherto adopted for settling
Allied military plans, and urged that in future the strategy
of the Allies should be determined not by soldiers meeting
separately and independently of statesmen, but at gatherings
where the points of view and the experience they each represented
could be pooled.
The Generals examined the proposition put before them
by the Conference and decided it would be too late to send
any batteries to Italy after Haig had attained his first objective.
The lure of Passchendaele and the timidity of the
Italian Staff had effectively done in — not the politicians,