WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

564 WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
there was apparent cooperation, it was not real and wholehearted
in either case. Thus Unity of Command was for the
time being discredited by the failure of the two experiments
made in 1917 — one with a French Generalissimo and the
other with a British. They failed, partly because there was no
joint Staff to work out the basis of united action.
The first step in the attainment of Unity of Commandment
was to secure real agreement on strategy and to have
an Inter-Allied Staff directly responsible to the Commanderin-Chief,
which would not be thwarted by the Staffs attached
to and dependent upon the ideas of the Commander-in-
Chief of each national army.
A genuine Unity of Command was ultimately evolved out
of this move. Even then, so great were the prejudices to be
overcome, it had to be achieved by two separate steps and
as a necessity, arising out of the consequences of overwhelming
disaster. At Doullens, Foch was called upon to "coordinate"
the effort of the two armies. But he was not given
the authority to command. That did not constitute a united
leadership and in practice it failed to achieve one common
direction. Unity of Command was only established later on at
Beauvais, where Foch was made General-en-Chef of the
two armies. But Versailles was the first step; Doullens was
the second; Beauvais was the final achievement of Allied
Unity on the Western Front.
When a Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies on
the Western Front came to be appointed, he had behind him
the ablest Staff in the field, which he could always call upon
to assist him in developing his plans. His orders could not
therefore be delayed or frustrated if any individual general
under his command proved refractory and interposed obstacles
on questions of detail, as Haig and Robertson did in
the Nivelle enterprise. Thus Versailles assured the success
of the Beauvais decision.