WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

THE UNITED FRONT SOS
schemes was tactical. But the principle had not been changed.
It was that of hammering on the strongest bastion in the
enemy's fortress, hurling millions of shells and hundreds of
thousands of men at this formidable stronghold whilst the
weakest parts of the enemy's ramparts were neglected. In
it there was "neither device nor wisdom."
Whenever I invited an examination by the C.I.G.S. or
Haig of methods for getting at the enemy on his weakest
rather than on his strongest side, I was put off with military
axioms about "the decisive front", and engaging your principal
enemy on that front. My experiences of this war, and
may I also say, of politics, encourage me to venture on another
axiom — you should never do what your leading foe
would like best to see you expend your energies upon. To
concentrate almost exclusively on the Western Front, where
your enemy had exercised his utmost engineering skill to
construct formidable entrenchments, where the transport
system behind was perfect, where he had more cannon and
machine guns than we had, and where consequently we lost
three men in fruitless attack for every two he lost in successful
defence — suited the foe. On the other hand, the neglect
to equip Russia, which ultimately deprived us of the support
of millions of first-class fighting men — the failure to exploit
the Balkan opportunity for organising a great federation
which would attack Austria on her weakest frontier and cut
Turkey off from her sources of supplies — all that was just
what the Germans would have wished us to do. And we did it
every time and all the time. When the generals were forced
by Governments to attempt other methods, like the Dardanelles
and Gallipoli, they did it so half-heartedly as to
make failure a certainty. They dispatched just enough men
and material just late enough to make these side shows a
drain on our resources without giving them a chance of
achieving justification by results.