WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

THE UNITED FRONT 513
The Commanders-in-Chief needed all the men and machinery
to break through in France, so the greatest chance of the
War, being elsewhere, must be neglected. We had the same
experience in 1917. An offensive against Austria which would
have converted her desire for peace into an urgent necessity,
was turned down in favour of colossal attacks in France and
in Flanders, both of which were colossal fiascos ending in
colossal losses. The only Allied military successes of the year
1917 were won in the despised East, where two of the most
famous cities of the world, Jerusalem and Baghdad, fell
into Allied hands, and the Turkish military faqade was
smashed in and the hollowness behind exposed. Had this been
done in 1915 or 1916, Turkey would have been out of the
War. Access to Russia and the Danube by sea would have
been opened and hundreds of thousands of men hitherto
locked up in sham fights with the Turk — childish exhibitions
of the prod and run-away sort — would have been available
for other fronts.
The only operation where the common front had been
the basic principle was the organisation and dispatch of a
combined French and British Expeditionary Force to Italy
after Caporetto. That had been a decisive success. It redeemed
a desperate situation. But the preparations had been
suggested and urged by British Ministers at the Rome
Conference. The generals had reluctantly acquiesced.
A mere change in commanders and War Office advisers
would not alter the intrinsic defect which led direct to these
failures in Allied strategy. The French had changed their
Commanders-in-Chief, but Nivelle was only Joffre writ
small. They changed their Chiefs of Staff repeatedly and
nothing happened except a change in the signature appended
to War Office documents. I came to the conclusion therefore
that the removal of Haig and Robertson would not touch the