WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

THE UNITED FRONT 547
sponding serious efforts have been made by the Allies to weaken
Germany by concentrating against her weaker allies and so destroying
the props upon which her power depends. These results,
which mean that the enemy has steadily deprived us of the preponderance
of men and resources we would otherwise have possessed,
while compelling us to squander our resources all over
the globe without achieving decisive results anywhere, would
probably never have happened, had there been any such unity of
direction on the Allied side as exists in the case of the Germanic
Alliance. If we are to win the War, it will only be because the
Allied nations are willing to subordinate everything else to the
supreme purpose of bringing to bear upon the Central Empires in
the most effective manner possible, the maximum pressure military,
economic, and political which the Allies can command.
"There is, I am sure, only one way in which this can be done,
and that is by creating a joint council — a kind of Inter-Allied
General Staff — to work out the plans and watch continuously the
course of events, for the Allies as a whole. This council would
not, of course, supersede the several Governments. It would simply
be advisory to them, the final decisions, and the orders necessary
to give effect to them, being given by the Governments concerned.
But it would be a council possessed of full knowledge of
the resources of all the Allies, not only in men and munitions, but
in shipping, railway material and so forth, which would act as a
kind of General Staff to the Alliance to advise as to the best methods
of winning the War, looking at the fronts and the resources
available as a whole. Its composition might be settled later. But
provisionally I would suggest that it should consist of one, or perhaps
two, political representatives of first-rate authority from
each of the Allies, with a military staff of its own and possibly
naval and economic staffs as well. The military representatives
would remain in continuous session at whatever place was chosen
as the scene of the Council's labours and could therefore not be
the same people as the chiefs of the several national General
Staffs, though they would have to be in the closest touch with
them. It would also be the same with the naval and economic staffs
if it were found necessary to attach them also.