WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE 1917

568 WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE
The military chiefs had already, in the winter of 1916,
planned their campaigns for 1917 on the same rigid and arid
lines as they had pursued in 1915 and 1916, achieving nothing
but a horrifying carnage unparalleled in the annals of
war. This time they felt certain that their one great idea
must succeed at last. They had made a few changes and improvements
to correct little mistakes they had discovered
last time in the action of their great plan. Moreover, they
were confident that the German troops had deteriorated in
quality since last year. So first the French were to conduct
a great hurtling offensive with masses of their troops on a
wide front, with the help of a diverting attack in the north
by the British on a narrower front. Then if these operations
did not finally succeed in driving the German Army out of
their entrenchments, the British Army were to undertake
another attack, and propel hundreds of thousands of their
best troops against the German fortresses in Flanders, in
order to expel the Germans from the Flemish coast, and then
fall on their exposed flank with masses of cavalry. It was all
based on the dynamics of the butting head against a tremendous
wall — in this case a wall bristling with machine
guns. It is only fair to the military intelligence to state that
the British were not enamoured of the French plan, and the
French were at first quite indifferent and eventually contemptuous
of the British project. Haig did not believe in the
Nivelle strategy and Petain and Foch scoffed at Haig's "duck
march" in Flanders. They judged wisely of each other's
plans if not of their own. That is a common attribute in all
human affairs. They nevertheless agreed, in that spirit of
fraternal toleration and accommodation that ought to prevail
amongst partners, to try both — in turn. Neither of the
two schemes had a reasonable chance of succeeding, for reasons
which I gave before they were ever attempted. But the
military staffs clutched at their respective projects. With